I’m in a rut. I’ve been in a rut for a few years. Wondering what I should be doing with my life and what I want to actually be doing. I feel like a child being asked what I want to be when I grow up, and I answer, “I don’t know”.
I’m not unhappy, but I’m not fully contented either. I don’t have a bad life. I make an okay living, and have an excellent family, a roof over my head and feel fairly secure. So what exactly is the problem? I mean, what is all this leading to? I this what I should be doing? Pursuing riches, wealth, property and success the way society has defined it? Or should I decide my own definition for success and live according to that?
I’ve been considering a career change, but a change to what? I started my business along the same lines of my career thinking that that’s what I needed in my life. But that didn’t help. I’ve burned through my savings to start this business, so the question is how can I now start something new?
It’s hard, and getting harder every day, to get any work done. Don’t get me wrong, I do like what I do, I just don’t find meaning in it. I don’t think of it creating the great changes that I need to see happen in the world. Can I do that? Can I make a career by doing that?
At first my career was a great joy for me because I was learning something new, and while I have opportunities to continue learning, my priorities have changed and learning is no longer the motivating factor. I want to make a difference; to do something more than just earn money and make a living. I was never motivated by money, so a job that makes me lots of money is not enough.
So I’ve set out on a journey of self-discovery to determine something more purposeful to pursue. I’m sure that no one will have any sympathy for me, and some may even be asking what is wrong with this guy. I could understand that. That’s some high-level shit right there. Could you believe that in hunter-gather days this would be something that mattered? Did one of our pre-historic ancestors wake up one morning and grunt, “what am I doing with my life?” That he or she has grown tired of the hunting/gathering; that dodging predators and surviving is not enough, and that they must make a difference? I don’t know if that happened, but I can only speak for myself.
It does make a difference to me to do something meaningful.