Who else battles through a soul sucking job nearly everyday? What to do?
I know many of us have dealt with this timeless question, but I've still never found that perfect answer...
I'm in my early 30''s, work in finance, and found out within a couple years of entering this field (that I fought so hard to get into) that this type of work is like a trap.
I made the move into finance once I knew I was having my first kid. I needed a stable and good paying career, and for those reasons I entered finance. I work as a bank analyst now, in an office, and I'm good at what I do, even if there's not much enjoyment or satisfaction in it. There's not much room to move up either, and even if there was I don't want to 'change things up' by 'doing a different version of the same kind of 'soul sucking work'. Many know what I mean by this - you need the job for the pay that supports your family with money and health insurance, without it you would struggle. Many don't have a job right now, and I sympathize in my rants, but the issue still remains. The job itself is a lifeless eight to ten hours a day sitting in front of a computer, doing some unsatisfyng work then passing the free time by browsing the internet until you can't take it anymore. Certainly not a bad deal, I know, but doing the same dull, uninspiring, unsatisfying thing every day, over and over and over, leaving you in a semi-worthless state for the few evening hours you have before you've gotta get to bed to do it all over again. It becomes a slow form of psychological torment, dulling and depressing you slowly, one day at a time, so slow you don't even notice it until something snaps you out of it and you stop and think.
Yet, if I quit, it would be hard to get another job in the field. Now is not a good time to try and change careers either, and if I did I would have to take a big paycut because I'd be starting new at something else, and I also worry that what if that something else ultimately leaves me feeling the same way (doing the same thing over and over for 40 hours a week seems like it would end in the same feeling). I'm all for risk and adventure, but with kids to provide for, Its tough to justify taking a chance on gambling our means of support for an increase in my personal happiness in this life. So its like being stuck.
But on the other hand, it's like this: What if you do only get one shot at this life? Or what if you believe in reincarnation, or something, and you had to live through thousands of lives in order to achieve this beautiful existence as a human? One day, you will reach the end of it, and look back on your life. I fear thinking 'This is what you did with it? Spent a majority of your time sitting in a room doing nothing you enjoy, waiting for your days to end, just for some kind of security?'
Thats the part that gets me, too. Waiting for a dull, unrewarding work day to end. Time flies by now that Im in my 30's, and I think sometimes that its even sped up by the fact that many of us are waiting for the workday to end. Waiting for one day to end, then another, seems like we just work into this groove of waiting for it to end - like we are just waiting out our lives instead of experiencing them to the fullest. Thats a scary thought.
I just saw a guy retire from my office. He did this for like 40 years, now he's very old. I put myself in his shoes, and I'm sure he had a good life, but the thought of doing this for another 30+ years terrifies me.
Thoughts?