Haven't we all had employers like Vizzini, the short, egocentric, short-tempered mad leader? I have often had to accept employment from people like Vizzini because of the lack of any other offers. I am currently under-employed, but I am mostly happy.
Are you trapped in a job you hate? Don't lose sight of what you want to do. Make each day be one step closer to doing what you love. It is easy to end up like Fezzik and Inigo, stuck in a job they knew was not right for them. They resented Vizzini, and their friendship with each other was the thing that kept their dreams alive, and led them to do the right thing.
Taking a job because we need a job is not the best reason to get up in the morning and deal with rush hour and spending hours and years of our lives doing something we hate or tolerate. It is not going to sustain us on an emotional level, and it should always be a segue to finding a better job. But as we grow older, most people, myself included, find our options and offers declining. At a time when we are our most experienced it becomes clear that no one wants us. Applications we submit go nowhere. Our spouses and children depend on our doing this work that we hate. Paying for our children's educations is expensive, we often can't drop everything and become jugglers in a circus. We settle for security over happiness. And then one day the company that we put our trust in goes belly up and we find ourselves adrift once more and scrambling to take the next job we will hate as much as the former job. This is no way to live, but billions of people on this planet do live like this.
If we are among the lucky few who found romantic love when we were young, we learned that the happiness of true love surpasses any work we might do. We can be happy working on a farm for low wages if the mistress of the farm loves us. Like Wesley, in 'The Princess Bride,' we don't mind doing menial labor. The moral of the film is that when we find true love, whether that is literal true love with another person, or in doing the thing we were meant to do, that we want to do, then we can find true happiness.
Wesley is everyone who ever set out with the dream of striking it rich. He was the wealthiest when he was in the company of Buttercup, but thinking he could never afford to wed her he goes on a mostly foolish venture. When we take a wrong turn, we do learn things about ourselves. Every journey has a lesson to teach us.
How many times have you been in love? I have been in love three times in my life. Each time I let it get away. Work isn't exactly like finding true love. We may love our work but it will never satisfy us in the deeper ways that we need, but having a job we love does make us happier people, and like in a game of dominoes, our happiness connects us to other things that could never have happened unless we projected this happiness. Like, for example, promotions, or finding our soul mates. The lucky few have found there is a thing they love to do, and so they start their own business based on that thing. If I were a job counselor the first question I would ask people when they came for advice would be, "What is it you love to do?"
This is a question we must all ask ourselves in our lives on a regular basis. My own story is that I have many gifts. I am a skilled artist, athlete, and amateur musician. But writing is what I love above all other things. It took me many years to accept this fact. My advice to readers of this blog is to take a good long look at what you love to do and seek to do it. Put aside all practicalities. Do not compartmentalize your dream. Dream big. Never compromise your happiness by taking a job you hate. And, in regards to true love: if you have found your soul mate, then you have found the single most important thing in this life, and everything else must necessarily take a back seat to it.
Be like Fezzik and inigo, who immediately regretted having kidnapped Buttercup, the new but not deflowered bride of Prince Humperdink. If you find yourself sailing for a destination, or being aboard a cause you don't want your life to go to or be a part of, get off the boat at the dock or jump ship. If you have an employer like Vizzini, be brave and walk away. You don't have to be unhappy in your job. Remember the lines Vizzini delivers to Fezzik and Inigo? He tells Inigo that he was a worthless drunk, and to Fezzik he says:
"And YOU: friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless! Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland?"
Better to be unemployed in Greenland than stuck on a boat with a mad man, doing things you don't feel good about. When we trade our happiness, and do not listen to our hearts, it is like sitting down with Vizzini for a game of wits where we are going to have to drink wine laced with deadly iocane powder. Better to not have to spend years developing an immunity to iocane, and to live simply and in poverty with our one true love, whatever that is.
Are there rocks ahead? Yes, but if there are, we don't all have to let our dreams be dead.
