How to Fund the Life I Want to Fund Me?

It’s Monday morning and I have work in 3 and a half hours. We have finished the in-room training and are now completely on the phones. Yeah, it’s a bit anxiety causing since this all still feels really new and I don’t feel I am completely prepared for this next level, but I’ve done OK so far so it shouldn’t be horrible, though this does not stop the angst of it.

The feedback I received from my trainer has been great, super positive, and that definitely helps some, but… Well, I have to admit that I really am not liking what I am doing. It’s not that it’s super taxing, other than the anxiety that I know will dissipate over time as I gain hands on experience, and it’s super easy work.  As I’ve said before, it’s definitely not my dream job. It’s an income, period, and not a great one. Not one that anyone could actually afford to pay rent with and still feed themselves AND pay any life-sustaining bills with, unless, of course, they lived in their car….or an RV. UGH

Anyway, I’m trying hard not to talk myself out of this job, if only to keep an income coming in. It won’t last like that, I know. I’m already finding about a gazillion different reasons on why I should be looking for a different job. Yeah, I think I need to at least look into something else. I have no plans of quitting without there being a replacement income first. But who really has time to look for other work when it feels like the current employment takes up all of the time? I’ll need to figure that out. I don’t think I should be dreading work on Monday at the start of the weekend, which seems to be how this is going.

So, what is it, exactly, that I’m not really liking about this job? I think a lot of it is just being completely out of my comfort zone. Yeah, I know. Not a good reason to give up on a job. With time it would become more comfortable and I’m sure I’d be really great at it (at least my trainer thinks so), and there is that whole room for advancement thing. I guess part of me keeps looking at the pay thing, what it looks like now and what it would look like with advancement, and there is absolutely no way I will ever make anywhere near what I used to make. Yes, there is consistency, which sort of makes up for the severe pay difference, and the ability to have health insurance benefits, which I’ve heard are not super expensive, something completely new to me.

I think this comes down to this is completely soulless work, nothing that feeds my soul in any way. There is also the fact that my dogs are spending about 10 hours a day alone, which is not great for them. My husband and I are also not spending hardly any time together, which I am finding irritates me a whole lot. I’m not saying we need to be joined at the hip or anything like that, though that seems to be how things have worked out for us over the past 11-1/2 years. It has been great for us to have the time apart, to do things on our own individually, to have the chance to miss each other, but only getting about an hour and a half together each night before going to sleep just doesn’t feel balanced at all. It is also costing my husband to miss out on some much-needed sleep in order for us to even have that much time together. If he went to bed when he should, we would have no time together – he’d be asleep when I got home from work.

I wish I felt more upbeat about this job. I know I was grateful that they could recycle me into a different training class when we had both cars go down, and that hasn’t changed. I’m grateful for the job, I just feel I can do better, find something that works better for my family and me, something that might even feed my soul at the same time. Is that being ungrateful? I don’t know.

I guess it’s time to start using my morning time, the time I use to try to rejuvenate to face the next round of calls, my time in the morning with the dogs, to start figuring this out, before I reach the point where I work myself into a fit and just walk away, which I have to admit doesn’t feel that far away. Who am I kidding? I already feel that way. I have had to talk myself into going to work pretty much every day for at least a week, now.

Is it normal to feel this way about a ‘normal’ job? Do most people just trudge through their work days completely unsatisfied, uninspired, robotically? If so, how on Earth do you do that and not end up feeling…well, suicidal? I guess there have been some serious personal benefits to the way I have been working throughout my adult life that I may have been taking for granted. Maybe not for granted. I just never have figured out how to have those personal benefits as a consistent part of my life and still be able to financially move forward. I know there is a way, more than one way, to make that happen. I wish I could figure that out and fast. Actually, I don’t understand why I have not been able to figure that out already. Lord knows I have had plenty of time to do so. I guess I need guidance, but I don’t know where I get this type of guidance from.

I’ve considered turning this blog into something more than it is. You know, buy the domain name, get it to rate better on search engines (which buying the domain name alone could do that), monetize it with affiliate links, learn how to guest blog and potentially get paid for it, etc. I’ve looked at a whole lot of information on how that is supposed to work out, what you ‘need’ to do, but I don’t know if this blog is good enough to carry itself that way and, at the moment, am not sure how I would fund it.

I’ve also looked into dog training school, as I’ve mentioned before, but I run into the whole how to afford it part, again. Writing a book? Again, is my writing good enough for that? This would also have its own monetary issues along with time factors, and the whole throwing it to the Universe with a hope and a prayer that the book would be successful enough to turn writing into a career that supports my family. Photography – same needs and risks – money, time, uncertainty. These are the things I would like to do the most, along with traveling while taking photos and writing about it, with my dogs (and husband!), of course. Perhaps I’m being completely unrealistic, being juvenile with my dreams and desires. Or, maybe, just maybe, I just need to figure out how to fund the life I want so that it, in turn, can fund me.

Thoughts?

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