Something many of us discover after some days of hard work and labor is a job designed to help you just to earn a living and not a life. So at first it sounds harsh, almost ungrateful, but when you sit with it and think about it twice, it begins to make sense.
A living means survival. It means just paying the rent, buying enough food, coffee, transport, and basic needs. At the end of the month everything is gone, but it means waking up early, being in traffic each day, meeting the line, repeating the same routine day after day. In that cycle you are so busy living that life that you hardly have time to build something of your own.
Your life, on the other hand, is built intentionally, shaped by good choices, by freedom. It becomes self-improvement when we learn new skills, invest in your mind and your money. This slowly creates something that doesn't depend on a boss or monthly checks.
This brings out the uncomfortable but honest question: why would your boss ever pay you enough so that you can survive without that thing? If you didn't need a job, would you stay? If you had financial freedom, would you still choose to work there, would you still choose to wake up each morning? Of course not.
Why would he pay you enough to walk away? He's not a fool. He's going to keep you within his control. He pays just enough to keep you there, not enough to leave.
That is why building a life is a responsibility, not your employer's. You need to self-improve yourself. Self-improvement is not just your hobby, it's survival. Within that you are learning, developing new skills, starting a small side business, investing even that tiny amount. These things, when time passes, shift you from depending on your job to depending on yourself. You build a life, a nice life.
But you also don't build it by accident. You build it by making small intentional steps, taking them every day.
Your job is just gonna help you to survive, but your growth and self-improvement help you to live.
Never confuse the two for any other reason.
Post reviewed by ecency curator. Keep working on self-improvement.