Vitalign Blog

Have you heard a young person make a nasty comment about working a 9-to-5? No?… Really? Okay, well what about the plethora of influencers online preaching the “freedom” of being self-employed, rather than an employee?

I don’t know about you, but I have.

It makes you wonder… what is with the new generation and the unreasonable angst against a “9 to 5” job?

Most of them preach for the “freedom” and “happiness” aspect of being self-employed. Along with the responsibility and the routine that is required to keep a stable job. Those things are very important, don’t get me wrong. We all want to (and should) feel a sense of freedom and happiness in our lives. Some of those claims are valid. However, they do seem to overlook one minor detail.

Not everybody hates their job.

Think about it. A lot of people in the younger generation grew up watching adults around them – parents, uncles, older siblings, etc. – drag themselves through jobs they couldn’t stand. Watched them come home exhausted, frustrated, and emotionally drained every day. They sat at dinner tables listening to complaints about bosses, meetings, or feeling undervalued. They saw the people closest to them sacrifice a huge chunk of their lives to work that made them miserable – all in the name of stability.

That must leave a mark…

By the time they end up in the work force, they already have a belief in place: a job equals suffering. And honestly? It’s hard to blame them for thinking that. It wasn’t just something they were told, they lived it.

Once the internet happened? Fuhgeddaboudit!

In the age of the internet, you now have a 19-year-old scrolling through Instagram watching some guy on a yacht in Mykonos talking about how he “escaped the 9-to-5” and made $40,000 last month selling digital courses – in between sips of something that probably costs more than a car payment. Or, the TikTok girl who “quit her corporate job” and now works 4 hours a day from a café in Bali.

Now, maybe neither of those are true. Or maybe they both are.

I don’t know.

One thing is certain. There are more ways to make a living today than any other point in human history. The internet made that clear. But it did something else too. It distorted the perception of what being self-employed looks like. All of the influencers talk about the positives of being self-employed, but they don’t talk about any of the negatives (which there are plenty). By painting this false picture of self-employment, the exception became the rule. The new generation being exposed to this type of content, in combination with years of watching adults suffer in their jobs, made the 9-to-5 the villain of the story.

And that message spread like wildfire.

It was a simple idea:

Employment is a trap. Self-employment is freedom.

And here’s the thing, there’s a kernel of truth buried in there. Getting up and going to work 8+ hours a day on something that drains you, does feel like a trap. Actually, it’s more than a trap. It’s a miserable way to live. But we need more information to paint the full picture.

Somewhere along the way, everybody jumped to the wrong conclusion.

There is one simple fact that has been overlooked by this narrative. There are people out there – real people, lost of them – who genuinely love what they do. People who wake up on a Monday morning without a feeling of dread. People who find satisfaction, meaning, and even joy in their work. People who are happy to have the obligations and responsibility of a stable job, in exchange for the security and stability that one provides. People who appreciate the structure, community, and the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

These people exist. And they’re not just secretly miserable and pretending otherwise. They actually like their jobs. Imagine that!

The difference between them and the person who counts the minutes until Friday. Isn’t employment vs. self-employment. It’s alignment vs. misalignment.

Here’s what I mean:

The miserable employee isn’t miserable because they have a job. They’re miserable because they have the wrong job. And the self-employed person who’s genuinely thriving? They’re not thriving because they escaped employment. They’re thriving because they found work that fits how they’re wired — they just happen to be doing it for themselves.

This is what the “9-to-5 is evil” crowd consistently misses. They’ve diagnosed the symptom — unhappiness at work — and prescribed the wrong cure. Quitting your job and starting a business doesn’t automatically make you happy. Becoming self-employed doesn’t guarantee freedom. Ask any entrepreneur who’s working 70-hour weeks, chasing late invoices, and doing their own taxes at midnight if they feel like the guy on the yacht.

The question was never “should I work for myself or not?”

The real question — the one that actually changes things — is “am I doing work that fits who I am?”

That’s the question worth obsessing over.

Because whether you want to climb the ladder inside a company you believe in, or build something of your own from the ground up, or find a middle ground that hasn’t been invented yet — none of it works if you don’t first understand what you’re actually wired for.

So if you’re at a crossroads in your life – maybe you’re stuck at a job you hate, a field you want to get out of, or even have no idea what you want to do at all – we built a tool for people just like you.

It’s called Vitalign.

It’s a Career Discovery System that uses real data to understand what environments you thrive in, and what environments make you miserable.

It helps you build a career roadmap you actually want to follow. For much less than an expensive career coach.

And the best part?

You can take our Career Discovery Assessment for completely free.(Takes about 10 minutes)

If that sounds interesting to you. Click the link below to get started.

Vitalign – Career Discovery Made Easy

If that’s not you, that probably means you’re already in a career you love. (Which is awesome!!)

But maybe you thought of somebody that could use this tool. In that case, send it to them.

Everyone should have a job like that.