So I’ve posted before about how working for somebody else is not a good idea in the long run, no matter how cool your job may be. Working for yourself is ultimately safer and more fulfilling and it allows you to regain control over your time. So if anxiety over your personal finances is causing you to continue to work a job you don’t like, consider spending that effort on finding a way to never work again.

I said “consider” because I do think there are a few reasons you might want to continue working a job. In my mind, there are only three such reasons:

1) Your job is the task you were put on earth to accomplish. Let’s say you were born to be a poet and can make money at it - awesome! Let’s say your life’s mission is to help orphans in Ghana and you’ve started a charity to accomplish this - wonderful! Don’t change anything. Unfortunately, many people spend their lives working jobs they hate because they believe there is no other choice. There is always another choice. Always, always, always. The other choice usually requires you to change your mindset, and most of the time, people too lazy to do that. For instance, I advocate reducing your “wants” and spurning conspicuous consumption. This is one very important step in the journey toward financial freedom, but it takes effort, and if you can’t be bothered, you won’t reap the benefits.

2) Your boss is someone you can respect and you are learning something invaluable at your job. You should never be stuck with the feeling that you are throwing away your time when you are at work. You may feel this way if your boss doesn’t know anything about being a boss and his simply wormed his or her way into that position by playing politics, or if the task you have to do every day offers no long-term benefit to anyone. One example of an individual who worked a job for a good reason is Robert Kiyosaki (at least by his own account). Kiyosaki sold photocopiers for several years, mastered sales, quit his job, and went on to use the techniques he learned to build a huge financial empire. (Wealth alone means nothing, of course; learning is what’s important!)

3) You need a reliable source of cash while you try to escape the rat race. This is perhaps the most depressing of the three reasons, and I hope you don’t have to spend long in your job if this is the main reason you are there. Put very simply, the long-term financial strategy I advocate involves lively cheaply and using the money you save to finance reasonable, simple, long-term, passive investments. Of course, while you’re still in the beginning stages of this process, you need a source of cash. This doesn’t mean you have to work a desk job. For instance, I work as a teacher, writer, and translator, which allows me to set my own hours - but I’m still exchanging my time for pay. I’d ultimately rather spend my time building income-producing assets, and I am in fact doing this on the side. Once I’ve attained some measure of success at this, I won’t take on any work I’m not totally thrilled with.

Maybe there’s a fourth or a fifth reason I’ve missed, but if you’re working a job for any reason other than the three listed above, I think you should take a long, hard look at your decision to stay in your current job. Consider the huge benefits of working for yourself: job security (no one can fire you!), independence, earnings potential that is theoretically unlimited. Quite honestly, whatever path you choose, I wish you the best of luck - but you already know which path I prefer!

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