Am I the only one who still has moments where she doesn't feel like a real grown-up?
Or maybe it isn't so much that I don't feel like an adult as it is that I don't want to be an adult sometimes? I don't know.
I have been feeling mildly discontented at work for the past month or so. There are things I like about my career field, and my specific job is pretty good insofar as my boss appreciates me and treats me like an intelligent human being with unique skills and attributes (this is rarer than one might think in my area of practice).
But on the other hand, there are things about my current sphere of practice that are very wearing; my stress levels are constantly at a level that I feel cannot be healthy; despite my best efforts not to, I spend too many hours working and thinking about work every week; and I just don't see myself doing this for the next 20+ years until retirement.
What does it say about me that I am on my second full-fledged professional career and dissatisfied? I'd like to think that, like the line from the Baz Luhrmann song Everybody Is Free to Wear Sunscreen from the late 1990s, it means I'm an interesting person (remember the lyric "Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't"?).
But I fear that it actually means something else. . . like I am destined to be perpetually discontent professionally no matter what I do.
I have no idea what the solution to this dilemma is, and I'm too busy today to ponder it further.
I think it's natural to go in waves of contentment with work and career choice in general. I don't feel like an adult and often feel amazed that I'm in my 40s. When did that happen?
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking the other day that I still feel like a kid inside. I think it's normal not to go through ups and downs of satisfaction at work. I don't believe that everyone will find a career that gives them complete contentment. I think that sometimes you just have a job and have to look for satisfaction elsewhere in your life. If you're able to carve some time out, try to do something just for you that makes you happy. It may make everything else a little better.
ReplyDeleteI just feel like me. I am a mother to two kids, we own a home and two cars and two dogs. I'm not sure what an adult is supposed to feel like, but if IF taught be anything it is that making family building decisions made me feel more grown-up than any other thing.
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