Some people go to work every day, and they just let it all slide. The backstabbing, the incompetence, the guy in accounting who somehow doesn’t know how to use Excel despite working in accounting. None of it fazes them. They walk through the foul mistreatment of a workplace like they’re strolling through a light drizzle—annoying? Sure. But worth getting worked up over? Not really.

Because to them, it’s just the nature of the thing. You don’t take it personally when the circus hires more clowns, right? That’s just what a circus does. You expect it. So when you’re in an office where stupidity reigns supreme, where the guy making six figures has never once replied to an email, where Karen from HR treats lunch breaks like they’re a crime against the company, you don’t get upset. You just go, “Ah yes, of course. That’s how it works here. Perfectly normal.”

And in a way, it’s freeing. Because if you expect nothing but stupidity, you’ll never be disappointed.

But then there are other people—people who actually have a functioning fight-or-flight response.

To them, every single moment of this misery is a personal insult. Every wasted hour in a useless meeting, every pointless task, every insultingly low paycheck is just fuel for the fire. And that fire? That’s the rage you use to escape.

You see, the worst thing you can do is let your anger be directionless. If you spend your whole workday fuming about your idiot boss, your lazy coworkers, or the fact that Carl takes two-hour lunches and still somehow gets promoted, then you’re burning up energy with nowhere for it to go.

And that, my friend, is how you become another lifer.

The key is to harness that rage. Not to lash out at the fellow inmates stuck in the same corporate asylum, but to turn it into momentum. Because here’s the thing:

🚨 Nobody is coming to rescue you.
🚨 Your company does not care about you.
🚨 HR is not your friend.

If you don’t like where you are, you have to build the ladder yourself.

And that means:

Acquiring skills that actually matter (because your job sure as hell isn’t teaching you anything useful).
Plotting your escape like a criminal mastermind (except your crime is not wasting your life).
Focusing on what actually pays off (because climbing the ladder in a broken system only gets you higher up in a broken system).
Now, at this point, some people will say, “But I like my job!”

And that’s great. You should stick with it. Enjoy the office birthday cakes, the empty corporate platitudes, and the powerful thrill of being CC’d on an email chain that will never end.

But if you’re reading this and thinking, Man, I really gotta get out of here, then congratulations.

You just took the first step toward freedom. Most people never think about leaving. They stay in the same soul-crushing job for twenty years, slowly transforming into the kind of person who corrects people’s grammar in emails because they’ve got nothing else left to hold onto.

So, you’ve taken a good, hard look at your job and realized something: it’s mostly a waste of time.

Oh sure, there’s work to do, and emails to send, and “action items” to circle back on—whatever the hell that means. But in terms of actual progress? Personal growth? Financial stability? Yeah, not much happening there.

The pay is low, so obviously, you want better pay.
There’s nothing to learn, so you’re going to have to learn on your own.
The whole thing is a disaster, so there’s only one option: fix it by leaving.

Now, a lot of people don’t do this. They sit there, year after year, saying things like,
💬 “Well, maybe next year they’ll give me a raise.”
💬 “Maybe my boss will finally notice how hard I work.”
💬 “Maybe if I just keep my head down, things will get better.”

Right. And maybe a unicorn will burst through the conference room window and start giving out Bitcoin.

Listen, being passive fixes nothing. You’re in a sinking ship, and there’s no medal for sitting quietly while the water rises over your head. Change is needed.

And here’s the important part: your situation is probably quite bad.
There’s no honor in treating it kindly.

If you’re underpaid, stop being polite about it.
If your job is teaching you nothing, stop waiting for a miracle.
If your boss is an idiot, stop expecting him to suddenly grow a brain.
You’re going to have to fix it yourself.

Now, some people get angry at their job and decide the best course of action is to complain about it for the next 20 years. You know these people. They hate everything, but they also never leave.

That’s because they’re missing the most important part: rage without direction is just performance.

But rage channeled properly? That’s fuel.

🔥 Hate your low pay? Start acquiring skills that pay better.
🔥 Hate your boss? Start making moves so you never have another one like them.
🔥 Hate wasting your life? Start building a life that isn’t dependent on a broken system.

Your job is not going to fix itself.
Your company is not going to suddenly pay you more out of kindness.
Your manager is not going to have a stroke of genius and promote you out of gratitude.

The escape plan is simple:
✅ Learn skills that make you more valuable.
✅ Apply those skills to get the hell out.
✅ Move on to something that actually benefits you.

And if you don’t? Well, that’s fine too. You can stay where you are and pretend things will change.

But between you and me?
I wouldn’t bet on it.