How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

that you can safely say there is no proper job for you in this world, while you point with reasonable pride to the many and honest attempts you have made to find the proper occupation. No doubt you have known men and women who are martyrs to the “ wrong ” job. We have often heard the complaint, “ If only I could have become a doctor ” or “ If only I could have gone into the wholesale grocery business instead of becoming an accountant ”. If you really are in the wrong job—and this sometimes happens if your job was chosen for you by well-meaning but misguided parents and friends, or if you chose it yourself at a time when you were mentally immature, and wanted only subjective satisfactions—it is never too late to change to the right job. Usually the men and women who are dissatisfied with their jobs are dissatisfied because they are not doing them well enough. Granted that, in our mad economic structure, it is not always possible to wait long enough to find a veritably satisfying work to do, because of the necessity of gaining an immediate livelihood, yet it is always possible, by dint of study and effort in your spare time, to acquire a new technique which will fit you for another and better job. Where this is really desirable, the individual usually can find ways and means to attain his ends. But the great majority of dissatisfied workers are dissatisfied with work rather than with their jobs. The spoiled and pampered child considers any job as an insult to his “ face ” and his own opinion of his personal value. No job suits him, because he has not grown up to the point where work appears self-explanatory and utterly satisfying as a philosophy of life. Laziness and procrastination are the commonest side¬ shows of the work arena. Their popularity is due to their effectiveness. Some men are lazy because they are stubborn, and see in the job they have to do the pro¬ jected hand of their authoritarian parents. Their protest takes the form of passive resistance to work. Others, and these are in the majority, are lazy because, by being lazy,