52. Do What You Really Want to Do

Few things complicate your life more than spending eight to ten hours a day, five to six days a week at a job you don’t like, doing something you don’t want to do.

Unfortunately, the process of figuring out what you want to do and then doing it isn’t necessarily simple. Unlike canceling your newspaper subscription (#28), which can be completed with a phone call, setting up your life so that you’re doing what you really want to do can take months.

Your task will be easier if you know what you want to do. Simply make up your mind to make the switch, and then do it. The process will no doubt include research, making new contacts, updating your résumé, possibly going back to school, maybe making a move across town or across country, and in some cases starting all over again.

If you don’t know what you want to do, you have the added burden of figuring it out, which could mean research, testing, counseling, experimentation, and then, as above, figuring out how to do it, including most likely starting all over again. But having just spent two years figuring out what it is I want to do, and then arranging my life so I can do it, I can promise you it will be worth whatever complications you have to go through to get there, and it will definitely simplify your life in the long run.