I've noticed something lately, a new phenomenon affecting friends and acquaintances of mine. It appears that there comes a time in a young (or not-so-young) professional's life, seemingly when they're somewhere between 35 and 40, when they take a really good, hard look at their life. Often they're married, often they have children, and often they have taken out sizable loans the size of 3 bedroom mortgages to do what is that they do every day. And maybe the vastness of time between now and retirement stretches out before them, and they think about getting up every day and doing what it is that they do, and coming home to what it is they come home to, and they think "Is this all there is?"
And then they have an epiphany. "I can't do this for the rest of my life! I'm too stressed...my job isn't meaningful...I don't see my kids...all I do is see my kids...I'm so godawful tired...I don't enjoy my job..."
Here's the thing: That's not an original epiphany. We ALL feel that way, at least some of the time. Yes, we're tired. Yes, the idea of a meaningful work/life balance is somewhat laughable as a professional in the age of internet and telecommuting. Yes, your children are growing up quickly and you miss things. Yes, what you do every day in your job, in the grand scheme of things, probably really doesn't matter much at all.
NEARLY EVERYBODY FEELS THAT WAY, AT LEAST SOME OF THE TIME.
The dirty little secret is that nobody WANTS to have to work. Nobody wants to have to get up every day and do something, no matter how fun, that is WORK.
But you do it. Because that's what being a grown-up is.
Unless you're a genius and have a great idea and work on it so hard that it becomes a raging success and Google buys it for 3 billion dollars, you're going to have to get up every day and go to work.
But in general, I get up every day and put a smile on my face and be the best cog in the corporate machine that I can be, because, at the moment, I've figured out that what I do isn't the thing that is going to fulfill me. My family, my friends, the things I do in my spare time, our vomiting codependent cats -- those are the things that matter, that are meaningful. And work makes it possible for me to have a roof over our heads and money for food and wine and the occasional vacation, and hairball treatments, so I'm just going to keep doing it. And when I think about doing something different with my professional life, I make small steps toward a new direction, because just chucking it all and becoming a graduate student again next semester would be a purely selfish thing for me to do, given my commitments. [Maybe not for you, I'm not judging -- but for me, it would be.]
Also, I hedge my bets and buy Powerball tickets when the jackpot gets over $100 million. Because I'm never going to invent the next Facebook or YouTube, and you can't win if you don't play.
3 comments:
I buy my tickets if/when I'm going through a bad stretch at work. When things are good, it never occurs to me to play the lottery, but when things are bad I daydream.
Sounds like you are having a mid-life crisis. Time to buy a convertible, find a hot young boyfriend, and wear age/size inappropriate clothing.
I'm not having the crisis, though! It's other people that I know, who suddenly at this age "realize" that work is hard and not always fulfilling, so it's time to quit their professional job and become a "full-time" stella & dot "stylist," performance artist, or yoga instructor, and someone else should pay their bills, including child care for when they are "working."
Although I may take you up on the convertible.
I'm a little late to commenting here - I think there is something about this that centers simply on our age - like you said, when you are done with the excitement of graduating college, getting a job, getting married, and having kids that just STRETCHES out forever in front of you. As one of said friends who is having a midlife crisis of sorts (better to own it, right?), for me the problem is that I WANT to work harder/better than I have been. I want to use my brains/gifts/talents and I want to set myself up to be better able to be the primary source of income for the family, rather than, say, a metal clay artist (although that would be super-fun, I'm sure). Still, even though part of this is due to changes in my field that make it less viable financially, there is a certain selfishness I feel at times about wanting to do something different. I will admit that I want to feel proud of my career - I feel like I'm not living up to my potential, which is probably true, but also sounds self-indulgent, since most of us probably feel that way. It's hard sometimes to separate being self-indulgent with taking responsible, albeit challenging steps to create a better, more secure, more fulfilling career.
Oh, and I'll take that convertible, too.
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