For the past two months, I've been working my first co-op work term job. In fact, aside from a brief one week minimum wage stint a few summers back, it's my first real job. Officially, I am a "programmer analyst intern" at NCR, a rather large and somewhat well known company (to its commercial customers, that is). Usually, this position goes to students with more experience, and it pays fairly well for a first work term. But there's something I need to ask those of you who work full time jobs.

Is it natural to hate your job?

Now, I don't mean all the time. Sometimes, the job is perfectly fine. But is it natural to sometimes absolutely hate what you do, spending your time fixated on the desire to be anywhere else, doing anywhere else? And if so, how often?

I wonder, because I hate what I am doing right now. I absolutely despise it. I care nothing for it. It is debilitating and crushing and energy-draining to an extent that I've never before encountered. And the toll it takes on me interferes even outside of work, the only time I have to do what I wish I had time to do.

But no matter how I say this to myself, I find I sound like a spoiled brat. Oh, boo-hoo, you don't want to do work, I say. You've got a good job -- a job you're lucky to have. Everyone has to work and make sacrifices. Suck it up. Heck, you're even lucky enough to live in a place where you can take your survival for granted and even have the opportunity to think about having more. Stop being so damned spoiled.

As pathetic and cheesey as it sounds, I need to create. Seven years ago I assembled my first ostinato, and since then the desire to use my creativity has been ingrained into my personality. Working a job where I cannot use that ability is suffocating the desire, and I can't help but think what would happen if I continue to seal that desire for the rest of my career.

But this is not a world where ideals can become real. At least, not on any reliable, consistent basis. The way I think sounds to me like some horrible poem written on the back of a high school cafeteria bench.

The path I'm on now would eventually lead to a career that would more than likely sustain me financially. Is it selfish to ask for more, just to satisfy my own personal wants?

It would be nice if I lived in a world where I could have my cake and eat it too. But the real world is a place where all but the most robust of dreams wither and die, and their deaths are both slow and horrible.

Why can't I be content to simply exist?