I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. I didn’t love them all the same, and I didn’t love them all completely. But I loved them all.

Loving your job is a DECISION. Some jobs were a better fit with my skills and values, but regardless of where I was, I always found things to celebrate and be joyful about. It starts with feeling gratitude for having a job at all—something we tend to forget more and more as the time increases since we didn’t have one. Then you go from there.

Now a big part of my job is recommending that others do the same.

It’s like a marriage. Anyone who has been married more than a day knows that there are delightful, wonderful things about your spouse—as well as a few areas for improvement. (Look in the mirror and realize that your spouse can say the same.) So where do you put your focus? When we focus on the positives, the delightfuls and the wonderfuls, our marriage works much, much better.

If on the other hand we focus on all of those things that aren’t so hot, we’ll start accumulating baggage, bit by bit, until the marriage is crushed under the weight of it. Happens all the time.

The same is true for the marriage of employee and employer. No employer ever hires the perfect human being—but how would you like it if your employer chose to focus relentlessly on your imperfections? Likewise, an employee marinating in grievances about the employer will make him or herself miserable—a misery that spreads quickly to everyone around.

Roxanne Emmerich