But this is a relationship advice site, you’re wondering…

True, true.

Your career matters just because in any given day, you will spend more time at your job than with your significant other, or doing anything else, really!

And something that takes up so much of your time (not to mention energy) has an effect on your relationships. If your job makes you happy and gives your day meaning, that positive energy has a way of profoundly effecting your love life.

On the other hand, if your job is mindless, and you know you could be doing something more…
or so stressful that you dread daily stepping into your office…
or just simply NOT what you truly want to be doing with your life…

that negative energy will also affect your relationships.

My husband loves his job. He gets to build things every day. He built the Bellevue Towers! (pictured above) He’s also built the Federal Reserve in Washington, the most advanced water treatment facility in the world, and right now he is building a Cancer Research Center. I’m kinda gushing about him, I know. Can you tell he’s my hero?!

I asked him what he liked about his job and this is what he mentioned:

• being challenged everyday
• seeing the finished product
• using math in his job
• the fact that he starts and
  finishes a project and goes onto something
  new so things are constantly changing
• working with his hands

Let me tell you, there is NOTHING more freeing and more wonderful than being married to a man who loves what he does for a living. He inspires me. He makes me believe in my dreams as he’s already fulfilled many of his dreams. He makes me believe anything is possible.

And because he spends the majority of his day doing something he loves, he’s a content, happy man.

That’s the best part.

Growing up in a strict Asian household, all I ever heard was “Be a nurse. Be a teacher. Be a lawyer. Be a doctor.” God bless my parents; they were amazing. But my mom’s sister chose her career, and my dad chose a career that involved little risk so he could be confident that he would be able to support us.

Nate’s mom told him something different: “Do something you enjoy, and pay your bills.” I’m thinking we are going to use that model for our kids.

A massage therapist once told me “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” I believe in this. I truly do.

So if your path doesn’t look “typical,” who cares?! This is your life. This is your happiness on the line. It will affect your relationships, I guarantee it. If nobody before you has gone down the path you’ve envisioned for yourself… be brazen. Be BOLD.

Look at Taylor Swift. One of the first singer/songwriters, singing about her personal life and even mentioning people’s names. She made personal narratives into songs. The new path she created made country music mainstream…

Someone told me her concerts sell out within a matter of seconds!

Back to my point: When you hate your job, you start thinking work is a chore, when actually work is a blessing.

I think the secret to happiness is having meaningful work, meaningful relationships, and fun things to look forward to.

Some people put all their eggs in one basket, hoping that a career will fulfill them. Alone, it cannot.

Others put all their eggs in the relationship basket, hoping that this guy or this girl will help them reach a state of perpetual bliss…

The truth is, neither, on their own can carry that weight of being the ONLY source of joy.

And when your work is not meaningful, and you’re not doing anything to change that, it creates misplaced pressure on your relationships to fulfill you in a way that they weren’t meant to.

If you are a subscriber on my RSS feed who also wants to build an online business but has just been procrastinating, READ THIS! (warning: explicit)

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inspiration for this article’s content:

wisdom from King Solomon:

Eccl 2:24-There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God…

3:13-also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

5:18-Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.