I love my job.
Saying that out loud still feels a little strange, almost like I need to qualify it or soften it. Like I should quickly add, “Not every day,” or “I know I’m lucky,” or “Of course, there are hard parts.” And all of that is true. But none of it changes the core statement. I love what I do.
What’s interesting is how often that sentence is met with surprise. Sometimes with admiration. Sometimes with quiet disbelief. As if loving your work is some rare outcome reserved for a handful of people who stumbled into the right path at the right time. As if fulfillment at work is a bonus feature, not something we should reasonably expect.
I don’t think it should be that way.
Work takes up too much of our lives for love and meaning to be optional. It takes our best hours, our sharpest thinking, our emotional energy. It spills into our evenings, our weekends, our conversations at home. When work feels empty or misaligned, it doesn’t stay neatly contained between office hours. It seeps into everything.
I’ve had phases in my career where work was just something to get through. Where the goal was to survive the week, collect the paycheck, and recover on the weekend. There was nothing dramatic or broken about those jobs. They were “fine.” And that’s exactly the problem. Fine slowly numbs you. It lowers your expectations without you realizing it.
Loving my job today doesn’t mean I love every task. There are long days. Hard decisions. Pressure. Moments of doubt. But underneath all of that is a sense of alignment. The feeling that what I’m building matters. That my voice is heard. That I’m growing, not shrinking. That I don’t have to leave my values at the door to be effective.
That feeling changes everything.
It makes effort feel purposeful instead of draining. It makes challenges feel worth leaning into. It makes you care, not because you’re forced to, but because you want to. And when people care, they bring more of themselves to the work. Creativity shows up. Ownership shows up. Pride shows up.
What bothers me is how often fulfillment at work is framed as luck. As if the rest of the workforce should quietly accept disengagement as normal and be grateful for stability alone. That framing lets systems off the hook. It turns a design problem into a personal failing. If you’re unhappy, the message is often: manage it better, hustle harder, be more resilient.
But fulfillment isn’t something you can squeeze out of thin air after hours. It’s shaped by how work is designed. By culture. By leadership. By whether people are trusted, respected, and allowed to be human. Jobs don’t accidentally become soul-crushing. They’re built that way, slowly, through choices.
And if choices created the problem, choices can also change it.
I love my job not because it’s perfect, but because it allows me to care deeply without burning out. Because curiosity is encouraged, not punished. Because growth is expected, not feared. Because the people around me value meaning as much as metrics.
That shouldn’t make me an outlier.
Wanting to love your job doesn’t make you entitled. It makes you honest. It means you recognize that fulfillment isn’t a luxury add-on to life. It’s part of a life well lived. We shouldn’t need to apologize for wanting work that aligns with who we are.
I don’t believe fulfillment should belong to the lucky few. I believe it should be something we actively design for, talk about openly, and refuse to dismiss as unrealistic. Because when people are fulfilled, everyone benefits. The work is better. The energy is better. The lives around that work are better.
I love my job.
And I hope one day that sentence feels ordinary, not exceptional.
Kenrick Vaz 