Getting a raise a curse?

THE TWO PRIMARY challenges of life are to support yourself and to express yourself. When you support yourself you become an adult. When you express yourself you become a person. The ideal, of course, is to combine vocation and avocation, to derive your income from work that you love. In fact, most people seldom try to do this. They get sucked into unsatisfying jobs in order to appease their parents or pay the bills. Once trapped, they never escape—and never become what they might have been. This is why a job promotion can be a curse, and getting fired a blessing. A promotion will usually increase your responsibility and income but carry you along the same career path, which in many cases is not what you want. A firing, on the other hand, often reflects a deep unconscious desire to quit your job and start living your own life in a truly satisfying role. - John Wareham, from The New Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter