I know that rage, I lived with it for several years in my young adult life.

It’s the type of rage that builds up over time. It begins to germinate somewhere within your psyche. It remains there, steadily growing, unrecognizable, because there’s no understanding yet of what is creating it. Something is wrong. Where is it coming from? How do you stop it?

"Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order?"

I remember many years ago when I was told to show up extra early for training day on my first “official” job. I was about 15 years old and full of adrenaline and naivete. I was donning my crisp new uniform ready to enter into the grown-up phase of my life that came with a paycheck and a new-found sense of self-respect.

“Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order?” she emphasized. That was Cathy, the cashier girl and my supervisor. Cathy was about ten years older than me and I would say that she had an attitude problem. Her biggest problem was me – a.k.a. “Flipper” – that was my nickname, even though I never had to actually flip a burger since the beef patty cooking operation was automated. My exact job was to run to the back freezer, snatch a fresh box of burgers, haul it to the grill station, tear it open, pry the frost-bitten patties apart and quickly fling them onto the conveyor grill. I had to repeat the identical process for the buns. There had to be a sufficient amount of burgers and buns passing through the conveyors at all times, otherwise the prep cooks would have to wait, and if they had to wait, then Cathy would have to, and that’s the last thing you wanted to have happen, especially during a meal-time rush.

“Hey Flipper, speed it up!” she would yell to the back. Her voice was like a death squad killing you with embarrassment, but what could I do? Very often I would have to stop the machine to battle a patty-gone-wild causing collateral damage to the grill, usually followed by grease fire and smoke.

"You want a car? Get a job. You want to live on your own? Get a job. In other words, get money.”

Eventually I would learn the system, particularly the things I could get away with and the things I couldn’t. There were a lot of rules. But for us employees, we really only cared about our paychecks and the end of our shift. From that first job I learned that money, or having a substantial amount of it, equaled freedom. And I carried this mindset with me from one job to the next. Until it permeated outside of my workplace – it had become an accepted myth in my life that I clasped onto like my wallet.

My indoctrination over the years taught me that happiness, like freedom, was attainable after it was earned. Therefore, the way to earn freedom was to make money. You had to work to be free, to consume, to rent, to travel, to become independent. The motto around our family was, “Get a job”. You want a car? “Get a job”. You want to live on your own? “Get a job”. In other words, get money.

However, this “get a job” rationale was lacking a very important factor which was essentially in the form of a question: What kind of job? Should it be something I could do? Or something I wanted to do? But when you’re young and dumb, and you want to take that vacation, the quixotic mind will very often trick you to getting the job you can do (at least for now). Earn the money, at whatever cost, so you can have the freedom to…(fill in the blank here). Don’t worry, it’s only temporary.

“I found myself spinning on a giant Ferris wheel with no one at the controls to stop it.”

Temporary turned into about fifteen years as I bounced from one job to the next that “I could do”, forever earning my freedom and chasing around an elusive “happiness” that came to me at the end of my shift. I found myself spinning on a giant Ferris wheel with no one at the controls to stop it.

There was a hole burning inside of me, an emptiness mixed with desperation. By the time I was in my late twenties, I was experiencing a terrible rage.

My salvation was the question. What kind of job did I want? I honed in on it. How do I begin transforming my work into something that brings value back into my life, and others too? I let the question sink deep into my conscience like a detox program for the soul.

Eventually, I quit feeding the rage that was fueled by a false belief that money led to freedom, and opted for value-creation instead to pave the way. The only thing people ever want is whatever is of value to them, they’re even willing to pay for it. Produce value for others, and money will follow.

If you ever find yourself flipping that proverbial burger at your place of employment, then I suggest you stop for a moment and think: Why am I doing this? Am I truly creating value in my life, or simply chasing dollars?