# Why do I lack ambition?



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

Hey. So, last year, I got a job working at a jewelry store. It took me a while to get a job. I was hired right away there. It was easy. 
While I started working, I got a call for something in my field. I dismissed them.

This year, I got a job at a bakery. I could definitely have more hours. 
While I started working, I got a call for something in my field. I tried to do both, but their 'regulation' was to work days I was incapable of given the bakery. But, I would probably have more hours and pay there. I dismissed them.

My reasoning is that I already started the jobs. Once I start something, I want to go through with it. I don't know what the second job would have been like, if I would have liked it. But, the way I work doesn't make a lot of sense.

Logically, a person should go for the better paying and more hour availability job. Maybe I viewed the initial jobs as my life now and that's what I planned to be doing. In the future, I will have jobs in my field. But it still doesn't make sense. I dislike the job market. Maybe I don't want to be working. But I have to. But I'm not smart about it.. :/


----------



## Monsieur Melancholy (Nov 16, 2012)

unINFalliPle said:


> This year, I got a job at a bakery. I could definitely have more hours.
> While I started working, I got a call for something in my field. I tried to do both, but their 'regulation' was to work days I was incapable of given the bakery. But, I would probably have more hours and pay there. I dismissed them.
> 
> My reasoning is that I already started the jobs. Once I start something, I want to go through with it. I don't know what the second job would have been like, if I would have liked it. But, the way I work doesn't make a lot of sense.


How long were you working at the bakery when you got the call from the other place?


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

Monsieur Melancholy said:


> How long were you working at the bakery when you got the call from the other place?


Hey MM~
A month.
Frankly, I just wanted to vent what I thought was an idiotic decision. But I had to make a choice. I'm fine with it for now. I have a problem with caring about what I'm doing.


----------



## Monsieur Melancholy (Nov 16, 2012)

unINFalliPle said:


> Hey MM~
> A month.


Okay so basically what you're saying is that the reason you declined the offer from the second place is because you wanted to finish the job at the bakery or see it through to the end? So, does that mean you were contracted to work with the bakery for a specific period of time and couldn't leave?


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

Monsieur Melancholy said:


> Okay so basically what you're saying is that the reason you declined the offer from the second place is because you wanted to finish the job at the bakery or see it through to the end? So, does that mean you were contracted to work with the bakery for a specific period of time and couldn't leave?


No contract. It's just the way I work. I like to see things through, continue them, not quit. Once I've started. I can leave the bakery, though I'm still getting the hang of things and they're sort of counting on me. Though, I'm not important to them yet. They treat me well and everything. I still make mistakes though. =p


----------



## Monsieur Melancholy (Nov 16, 2012)

unINFalliPle said:


> No contract. It's just the way I work. I like to see things through, continue them, not quit. Once I've started. I can leave the bakery, though I'm still getting the hang of things and they're sort of counting on me. Though, I'm not important to them yet. They treat me well and everything. I still make mistakes though. =p


What are the chances that a job offer like the one "in your field" would come around again in the future?


----------



## dragthewaters (Feb 9, 2013)

I think this is an INFP problem. Did you feel any guilt about potentially leaving the bakery people and making them have to go through the whole job search again? I recently turned down an offer for an interview because the job wasn't right for me and I felt underqualified, but the people obviously really wanted to hire me and I still feel really guilty about it. Us INFPs are too people-pleasing and principled to be much good in the business world. You have to learn to be more tough and heartless....


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

thismustbetheplace said:


> I think this is an INFP problem. Did you feel any guilt about potentially leaving the bakery people and making them have to go through the whole job search again? I recently turned down an offer for an interview because the job wasn't right for me and I felt underqualified, but the people obviously really wanted to hire me and I still feel really guilty about it. Us INFPs are too people-pleasing and principled to be much good in the business world. You have to learn to be more tough and heartless....


Interesting. I would feel hardly any guilt if I were to quit on them. I'm barely getting hours. I do think I'm lowering my value, like you're saying about feeling under qualified though they do want to hire you. I feel guilty to the people I turned down. I went through a few interviews and was told seeing the boss was good news. I saw the boss. 

I was walking my dog earlier and I thought that maybe I settle for average, I don't reach my potential and I'm just okay with being okay. Also, I have a sort of rebel in me and the thing to do would be to be working more, so I don't want to maybe. I have a thing against doing too well and it's strange. I used to be captain of my soccer team and get A's and I feel like it took away from other people, so I faded away. I didn't want to excel. I was okay with being mediocre. But then, I got really down when things weren't going the way I wanted. Maybe I sort of gave up. I don't know. I'm kind of uncaring. 

I can still call them back and see if they'll have me, but I keep telling myself things like ah, it's only for the summer anyway and it's something more serious, so they might demand what I can't take when school starts. It's a bigger corporation and not a private company like where I work now, that familiar vibe, family/regular, nice client environment. I just tell myself that I had to make a decision and the second opportunity was like it had not presented itself. But, I'm seeing that I can be working and being paid a lot more. And I'm wondering why I just don't give a shit.

It's also not so bad. I like the environment I work in, though I wish I could be there more. Hopefully, later. And things will figure themselves out.

Appreciate it! ~


----------



## geekofalltrades (Feb 8, 2012)

Another question I would ask is, How excited are you about actually doing work in your field? I've been working in my field for the last two years, but I recently walked by a restaurant that had a "Now Hiring" sign in the window and contemplated quitting my job and being a waiter.

I haven't got a lot of ambition to move up in my field because my field has an interesting big-picture, but a tedious and soul-crushing day-to-day, and moving up in it just seems absolutely unrewarding.


----------



## angeleyes (Feb 20, 2013)

Perhaps it is not that you are not ambitious, but incredibly loyal. This is admirable in a day and age when most people will abandon ship on a whim.


----------



## telepariah (Jun 20, 2011)

There is nothing wrong with your current loyalty. You don't have to take every job that's offered to you even if it looks great by conventional standards. If you were really committed to your field and passionate about it, you might have given them a more serious look. But you also might still feel that the bakery is where you belong right now. And that would be ok too. I have taken the offers and the promotions and the pretty good money to do something I was good at but deep down not really passionate about. I learned a lot but now I wish I had not spent 20 years of my life chasing somebody else's dream rather than finding my own path.

If finding your own path has you motivated to stay at the bakery, there is no need to feel guilty about it at all. Not all of us are meant for high achievement in the field we went to school for or the one we chose to stay in but we may be in something else that we really care about. I finally dismissed that whole career and went back literally to one of the places where I had been on my own path before I veered off and into a long stretch of trying to be somebody else to please other people. I started over in the same job in the same basement of the same historic building that I had when I was 23 because it felt right. Stay true to your self and don't second guess your choices. All choices are valid.


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

geekofalltrades said:


> Another question I would ask is, How excited are you about actually doing work in your field? I've been working in my field for the last two years, but I recently walked by a restaurant that had a "Now Hiring" sign in the window and contemplated quitting my job and being a waiter.
> 
> I haven't got a lot of ambition to move up in my field because my field has an interesting big-picture, but a tedious and soul-crushing day-to-day, and moving up in it just seems absolutely unrewarding.


I'm going interior design. I picked it because it excites me, I can see myself being passionate about it. I would like to know more about it and actually get the feel of it firsthand. I don't know how realistic it'll be to find something in it. I'd like to go all the way with it, maybe even have my own business eventually. Looking too far ahead though and idealistically. Anything that has to do with home design is of interest to me. Whether it be furniture, tiles, lighting, materials, etc. I'll find out what sector and what thing I enjoy working in, hopefully, and can find something in it. It does interest me to be working in it. I'd even do the hands on part of it. I am looking forward to it very much. So much so that my school bag is already ready... First, knowledge, skills, seeing if I'm good at it and like it, hopefully, advertisement, work. 

I can see how moving up to something would be tough, especially "tedious and soul-crushing". Christ, what is it that you do?


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

angeleyes said:


> Perhaps it is not that you are not ambitious, but incredibly loyal. This is admirable in a day and age when most people will abandon ship on a whim.


Well, thank you. I think my loyalty has been stupidity sometimes. Like a failed relationship. He didn't cheat on me or anything. I should have realized I was unhappy with it and not try to stick around and work it out. But, sure. I like it. I'm loyal. Rawr. *lion*


----------



## unINFalliPle (Jul 8, 2012)

telepariah said:


> There is nothing wrong with your current loyalty. You don't have to take every job that's offered to you even if it looks great by conventional standards. If you were really committed to your field and passionate about it, you might have given them a more serious look. But you also might still feel that the bakery is where you belong right now. And that would be ok too. I have taken the offers and the promotions and the pretty good money to do something I was good at but deep down not really passionate about. I learned a lot but now I wish I had not spent 20 years of my life chasing somebody else's dream rather than finding my own path.
> 
> If finding your own path has you motivated to stay at the bakery, there is no need to feel guilty about it at all. Not all of us are meant for high achievement in the field we went to school for or the one we chose to stay in but we may be in something else that we really care about. I finally dismissed that whole career and went back literally to one of the places where I had been on my own path before I veered off and into a long stretch of trying to be somebody else to please other people. I started over in the same job in the same basement of the same historic building that I had when I was 23 because it felt right. Stay true to your self and don't second guess your choices. All choices are valid.


=)
I like your story.
And your advice about finding your own path. It's not something permanent at all, but it works for now. Who knows, maybe I'll own my own bakery someday or work with sweets. I like sweets, and many foods for that matter. XD 
Thanks.


----------



## Monsieur Melancholy (Nov 16, 2012)

I love bakeries.

And the thought of an INFP in charge of one?

Sounds sweet.


----------

