Have you ever had that discussion with your parents - you know the one where you are unhappy with your job and you’re looking for a change because of all the stress, chaos, and simply the lack of passion for what you’re doing. And when you do have the discussion, the parent (in my case my father), get’s that glossed over look in his eye and says - you haven’t seen stress until… or you don’t know what work is until… 

Please don’t get me wrong.  He has worked harder in his 65+ years than I probably will work in 90+ years if I’m blessed to live that long.  However, times change dramatically with each generation.  His experience with work was different than his fathers and mine is different than his.  Not only are the contexts and the environments in which we work different, but we are different people.  Not terribly different, but different enough for me to know that I can’t work because it’s a good job with good pay and good benefits if it doesn’t interest me or feed my passion for living. 

I like a posting at [1] StartupSpark on how you’ll know you’re an entrepreneur (You can also find the listing at [2] lifehack.org).  I don’t think you have to necessarily own your own business or jump into a start-up company to be an entreprenuer or at least have an entrepreneurial spirit.  I certainly have held positions where I felt like an entrepreneur.  I loved the work, I loved the people whom I served and whom I worked with, I had a passion for what I was “selling” (and for that matter still do even though I haven’t been in that position for more than three years), I lived my work, I was always looking for new opportunities - both to extend what we were doing and how we were doing it and, most of all from the StartupSpark list, I think that I was always prepared to say, “I don’t know but I’ll figure it out.”  That is the part I’ve lost in my current position.  I can easily say I don’t know, but the I’ll figure it out part - that passion to answer the next question, conquer the next challenge, fill the next void, just isn’t there in this job. 

So dad, for you, please know - I don’t really think I have it bad.  I just want more.