Work and Hating It

I had a revelation this morning. Coming from a perspective or angle I don't frequent but is frequently brought to me by conversations with other people. This time, it was a drunken conversation with a clear-headed first year student who, despite his naivete and his unwillingness to see things from my jaded perspective, made some good points. And that revelation is that, in order to be happy at work, you have to compromise. You can know what you want out of work, you can know what you expect and what "should" be (happening), but the *moment* that you expect those things to happen, you are bound to be disappointed, frustrated and, if you can't adapt, eventually jaded and angry.
Furthermore, the stance that one must take when preparing for an environment of unmet expectations is exhausting - heels elevated, knees and elbows in, head up, every sense alert and attuned to the external world, waiting to pounce, to fight, to fix that what has been broken. If we were capable of sustaining this intense stance, if the stance were capable of fixing things gone wrong, it would be worth it and it could be discarded once the job was done. Unfortunately, in my circumstances, it is not sufficient. I could go into that, but when I start to complain about my circumstances, I get pulled into a feedback loop that amplifies the situation until I can no longer deal with it and I shut down.
So what is the solution? Can you go to work and know that it's going to suck and still be ok with it? Can you give the task your full attention knowing full well it's inadequate? I think the answer to those is "no", I think the solution is to do a good job but not your best job - to keep a little something of yourself for yourself, to stand apart from the situation and not enter fully into it. I think the best way to go about a shitty work environment is to take a step back, remind yourself that you are not your job and plan something fun for after work or for the weekend. The biggest trouble I have when trying to do this is a little voice in my head that tells me that if I *don't* give this everything I've got, then I'm going to fail, get kicked out and I will wind up having wasted my time, my youth, my talents and my opportunities.
So how do you tell that voice to shut up? I suppose the easiest tactic is to just simply shout back and tell it that it's wrong. I suppose I could also remind myself of all the times that working too hard just got me into trouble and working less actually turned out well. I could remind myself of the jobs I've held where I didn't give a shit and I still got my work done and everything turned out all right. The trouble with these tactics is that they are not impervious to criticism or analysis and so that voice that is telling me to give more goes and attacks that "evidence" and I cave and I don't wind up in a better situation. The tactic I'm trying to learn how to implement I learned from a friend and it goes something like this: when that voice starts to denigrate and convict you, to try and drive you to do it's bidding, take a deep breath, meditate on that breath and open your awareness to the fact that that voice has a source and it isn't as secure in it's justification as it would lead you to believe. This meditative tactic (known as Mindfulness and explained in "Emotional Alchemy" by Tara Bennett-Goleman) allows you to identify the sources of these destructive and manipulating voices, to see them for what they are, and, effectively, castrate them so that they no longer have power over you to control you or make you miserable. Eventually, if I become good at this, I could even shut the voice up entirely. So, I'm working at developing my meditation skills, working at being more mindful, working at being more honest about what is going on in my head. I've got hope that it will turn out well, now I just have to invest the time and energy into seeing it through.