NVR - Following your passion; Philosophical Question
I'm not sure where to start, but here goes. I turned 30 several months ago, around the same time that I decided to go vegetarian, and I've taken a serious look at my life.
I realized that my life could feasibly be half over (I certainly hope not, but it could be) and I want to make the most out of the time I have left. I did everything I was "supposed to" - I went to college, I went on to grad school, I found a great career and a fabulous job, but I'm still not fulfilled. I'm on-call 24 hours/day with my job as a university administrator and I'm stressed beyond belief. I've become a workaholic and I get sick every few months due to the stress. On top of it, I have no social life, which is not a big deal, but it gets lonley sometimes.
I've realized that life's not all about having the perfect job or making the wonderful salary . . . like I once thought it was. I'd much rather have a job that I care about, but one that allows me to go home and leave work at work.
Has anyone else felt this way? Have any of you found a way to merge work, passion and paying bills? How did you make the first move?
Thanks!
-Tiffany
React from the diaphragm--at gut-level, how would you feel if your life suddenly changed completely? Say you lost your job--where would you go, what would you do, how would you feel? If the reaction is one of RELIEF...I would do some looking. So what if you end up doing something you didn't train for, even if that something is flipping burgers or working in a greenhouse. If it makes you happy or allows you the breathing space to find your new path, go for it.
First, forget the following words: Must/n't, should/n't, and (not) supposed to.
Write yourself a letter and tell yourself how you really feel, what you aren't achieving on the inside and how you might go about changing that.
I agree with yabbit. If you "train," i.e. educate yourself, for a career and go on to find it doesn't make you happy, do something else. You spend most of your waking hours at work and if you're unhappy, that means that you are unhappy for most of your waking hours. There are many, many folks out there who have advanced degrees in something and are doing something else. As far as I'm concerned, it's not all about the money. However, I will say this. If having the wonderful salary means that you have "upped" your lifestyle as well, you'll have to consider whether or not you are willing to do without some of what you can afford now in order to take a lesser paying job. Of course, you may be so happy at the lesser paying job that you feel like you don't need some of the things you bought with the better paying job because you thought they would make you happy. If you can make a living wage doing something you love, go for it.
It's for damn sure my life is more than half over and I'm all about peace, serenity, and simplicity. I'm in middle management and some days are more stressful than others, but overall I'm one of the lucky ones that gets paid well (relatively speaking) for doing things I (mostly) enjoy. I don't bring home work physically, ever, but there have been a few times, especially recently, that I have brought work home mentally and emotionally and I don't like that either. As much as I can, I guard my time off from work. If I were your mother and I knew your work was making you sick, I would be telling you to start looking somewhere else. (CeltKat has heard all of this before because I AM her mother... ;D)
Thank you yabbit and bookmama, I really do appreciate your thoughts and insights into this - it's such a scary place to be! I think I'll write myself a letter this afternoon. I committed to working this next academic year, so I've got some time to figure things out.
Part of the issue is my parents. They have always focused on having a good job and making lots of money - nothing against them, mind you - but it makes it hard when that's been imbedded in my brain since I was little.
Truly thank you . . . . it means a lot to me.
I guess it depends on what you call a "good job." To me, a good job would be one that made me happy. I want my children to be happy and successful (that is also up for interpretation) and I want them to make a living wage--whatever that is to them. Bottom line, though, is happy.
When I turned 30 I thought about this, too. I have an awesome job with great flexible hours so I get three day weekends and decent pay, so why don't I feel fulfilled?
My question is whether you can modify your current job to be less stressful, even if that means giving up some control. Do you have to do so much or can you delegate more work? Can you create an emergency response tree, so you're not always the person called?
If you took took a job that was a demotion at another college or private prep school or somewhere, that required less 24/7 from you, would that help? If you did that, shopping location where there are more singles would be as important as opportunity.
The reason I didn't follow any of those is because I don't like change much and I do like my current retirement package. I've decided to continue working where I'm at and retire as early as possible. I think it would be just fine for me to work in a bagel shop right now, but when I'm 70 and have no retirement, will it still have been the best decision?
Decide what parts of your life are really making you unhappy. Is it work, or the lack of something in your life to act as a balance? Then decide how unhappy it is making you and if you're willing to give up things for a change and what it would really mean to give up those things. The change could be control at work or income if you change direction.
Is it your job that bothers you or is it something else and then everything else sucks in life as well?
I think money does bring happiness at times so don't be to quick to throw your job away.
The only thing I can tell you is make sure you attack the right thing that's bothering you. Identify it and then find a solution or think of the options to it.
And a question if I may. How can you be an on call administrator 24 hours a day? I can understand if there was some emergency and your office has to get in touch with you. But not
everything should be an emergency. Tell them not to bother you for every nook and crany. Tell them to save it when you come in the next day.
I'm one of those people who has followed their passions and is very happy about it.
When I originally went to college I was a geology/chemistry double major. I've only worked in that field very briefly and realized that I wouldn't be happy in it. I then became a bit of a vagabond for a while living at a skydiving center making minimum wage. I was very happy but then it's easy to be happy when your 21. after a couple of years of that my friends convinced me to go to massage school. I was always the everyone came to when they had aches and pains. After another year of school I was on my way to a great new career. I love what I do as a massage therapist and I also teach college in the health science department which is very rewarding. I don't make a lot of money but I live frugally and am still planing on retiring by 55. I'll probably always work in some capacity but I want the option to not have to.
I am still very active at the skydiving center which is full of people who have advanced degrees in diverse areas but are choosing to make their living skydiving. I can't think of a happier group of people.
Follow your dreams!!
You spend most of your waking hours at work and if you're unhappy, that means that you are unhappy for most of your waking hours.
This is the idea I have kept in my thoughts for the last five years or so as I've figured out what I want to do. For me, it's just not worth it to be unhappy in a job so that I can presumably be happy in my "other life." There isn't enough time in my other life for that to be worthwhile, and usually, if a person is unhappy in her work life, it spills over into her other life anyway.
I used to have a job from hell where I never had to bring any work home, but I was stressed out all the time just thinking about my daily grind at the office. I can honestly say I am happier now as a teacher, making the same amount of money, even though I am constantly bringing my work home with me. I know this is because I get personal fulfillment from helping people learn... I guess you could say my job life doesn't just fund my other life, it enriches it.
Is there anything you do in your current job that you find personally fulfilling? Is there a way to expand on this, or perhaps take on another role in the university that takes better advantage of your interests?
startaurus - I work at a very small university. I am literally a one-woman department. I'm in charge of housing and I also live on-campus (one of the perks of the job) but it means that I get called fairly frequently when something goes wrong.
I've worked harder this year at telling my staff to call me as a last resort, and they have gotten better. There is still always the feeling that I will be called. Does that make sense? I don't sleep as well as I might (since I sleep really hard) because there's a chance there may be an emergency - medical, mental or otherwise.
It doesn't help that as our students have increased, we've gotten more students who have come in with psychological issues - for some reason the students always seem to have their breakdowns in the middle of the night.
I'm not trying to make excuses - I know that in the past I allowed myself to be much more available than I should have and I truly have made efforts to have my staff not call me first in situations that can be handled by others. I've found when I go out of town or visit friends who live elsewhere, I always sleep better because I know there will be no middle of the night phone calls.
I love the daily interactions I have with my students - getting to know them, their past, what brought them to school, what motivates them, etc.
I think what I initally loved about my university (small, gave me the opportunity to wear lots of hats) is now what is burning me out. I'm the Assistant Dean of Students, Director of Residence Life and Judicial Affairs and I'm a Resident Director. If I could focus on one area, that might help. Maybe that's where I need to start - figure out which part I truly enjoy the most and go from there. It doesn't help that I've been here 5 years and I'm just tired at this point.
Good food for thought - thanks everyone!
Get yourself a part-time assistant if there's no money train an intern. And if you can't do that train somebody in your office who works nights to handle it.
I love the daily interactions I have with my students - getting to know them, their past, what brought them to school, what motivates them, etc.
I think what I initally loved about my university (small, gave me the opportunity to wear lots of hats) is now what is burning me out. I'm the Assistant Dean of Students, Director of Residence Life and Judicial Affairs and I'm a Resident Director. If I could focus on one area, that might help. Maybe that's where I need to start - figure out which part I truly enjoy the most and go from there. It doesn't help that I've been here 5 years and I'm just tired at this point.
Good food for thought - thanks everyone! (quote)
Or you could just be bored to.
Well, I'm only 24. But, this saying was always drummed into me - from a young age: "always go for the passion." I've always been passionate about writing. I knew I wanted to write about ecology, the environment ... both articles and fiction (like Kingsolver). So, I went on to study biology with a concentration in ecology so that I'd have the science background in order to write about what I wanted. I've done articles here and there all along, and I'm super excited to begin pursuing it full time when I graduate. To me, it doesn't matter what it takes to get there. If I have to live in a tent in the woods in order to keep the costs down while I "make it" ... I'll do it.
My S/O wanted to design cars ever since he was 5. He graduated from Pratt. No one in the car industry would offer him a job, but everyone in the advertising industry was knocking on his door. He could have gotten an AMAZING job in advertising. Instead, he chose to live in his parent's basement, and work in a bike shop to make pocket money. He kept sending his designs to car companies. One year later, Chrysler asked him to come on board. This was in the mid 1990's and he turned the company completely around. All his cars won design of the year. Of course, now Chrysler is going bankrupt ... but that's because they're best designer quit 10 years ago to run his own business. ;)
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about - always going for the passion, no matter what. If you do what you love, what moves you ... you will be successful in it. Most of my life will be spent making money. If I don't love what I do to make that money, I might as well sign up for the homeless shelter. Because, for me, there is no point in spending my life doing a job for which I have no passion, desire, drive, excitement, love, etc.
I am in love with writing. So much so, that I would do it for free. Fortunately, I don't have to. ;) But, I think, in life it is so very important to just risk it all, and go do what we're really passionate about. We only get this one chance at life and there is nothing afterwards (I'm an Atheist) ... so we might as well make it as happy, as passionate, as exciting, as fulfilling, as wonderful, as is humanely possible. Otherwise - what is the point?
I think you need to write a proposal to add an assistant or a different emergency response procedure - such as people rotate response duty so you are only on call one week a month.
I was going to do something really cool - documentary filmmaking. That was until I worked on films. I had awesome experiences and finding creative ways to solve in-the-field problems was fun. However, I couldn't see myself liking it longterm regardless of how cool it was so I went back to school and followed another passion - environmental conservation. I now have a job I like. Maybe there's too much paperwork at times, but it's still good.
If your management doesn't accept your proposal or parts of your proposal, you could use your job as a platform to get a better job somewhere else. I'd mention an entire career change, but nothing in your posts make it sound like you dislike what you're doing, just that it's exhausting you.
I'm stressed beyond belief. I've become a workaholic and I get sick every few months due to the stress. On top of it, I have no social life, which is not a big deal, but it gets lonley sometimes.
Has anyone else felt this way? Have any of you found a way to merge work, passion and paying bills? How did you make the first move?
This happened to me when I was 28. I worked in corporate accounting and was so over-worked and stressed that I was having migraines 4-5 times a week and a major flare-up of Crohn's Disease. The headaches were so bad that they caused damage that appreared on a MRI which in turn meant a lot of other medical tests. My mother and twin finally confronted me about it and told me to quit. That a job wasn't worth making yourself sick. My twin allowed me to sign over my half of our house to her so that I wouldn't have a mortage anymore and my mother, bless her, basically took over everything else... making sure I was eating healthy, etc. I was that wore out. I almost literally slept for the two months after I quit. Believe me, I felt bad about the loss of control and letting myself get to that point. Four years later and I have no regrets. I'm almost finished with my degree in international studies (financed by my retirement savings) and will soon be doing what I love. I work as a cashier in a grocery store while going to school and although I don't make even one third of what I did before it doesn't bother me in the least. Because for me the positive outlook on life that returned was well worth the loss of money. I make enough to pay my bills and have a little extra. I don't need anything more.
It doesn't help that as our students have increased, we've gotten more students who have come in with psychological issues - for some reason the students always seem to have their breakdowns in the middle of the night.
Yes, they do. Because night time is the time when people are tired, their resistance and barriers are lower. It is also the traditional time for dates, pairing, sexual or romantic companionship. So it is the time when the unpaired, the fragile, the unsure, feel lonely and unwanted and unloveable. Speaking as a person who had a nervous breakdown in her freshman year of college, one of the detonators was the sudden, devastating knowledge that there were more students living in the dorms than there were inhabitants of my home town--and that if I dropped off the planet, few people would notice or indeed care. I wasn't "popular" back home--but the sense of total anonymity got me.
I once read in a novel about a convent: "If there is any instability, religious life will make it worse." The author states this because of the intense introspection involved in a cloistered order. The same can be said of university life, if like me you are far too intellectually oriented and go to school early, before developing social skills. Freedom can be heady, but also frightening.
not that this is happening to you specifiaclly...but I feel that americans are sort of programmed to follow this typical approach of -college-career-family-retirement-the end
seems to me like alot of people get to a point in that path where they look around and think "is this all bullshit?"
i think 80% of the things in our lives that stresses us out IS all bullshit. posessions (mostly useless), over working, being unhappy and feeling stuck
i say if youre not happy now then start making some major changes whats the worst thing that could happen? youll still be unhappy? maybe worse off? maybe...but you could also be happy and feel great as well
granted this might not work for everyone, its worked for me though. I prefer to live as free as possible with as few responsibilities as possible. I dont own much, because I dont need much. I work less than most because Id rather have free time over money, and since I dont have/accumalate as much as my peers...I seem to have more free money and time than they do
hope some of the VWs advice here helps
jewel,
Have you ever looking into buddhism? You do not have to give up your current religion or make a drastic change in your life, just read a couple of books on buddhism & start meditating and just appreciating what you already have for what it is. After I get home tonight, I'll take a look at the books I have & recommend some to you. They can be really helpful just in changing your outlook & making you a happier person.
my dad always said 'do what you love and the money will follow'. it gave me hope from middle school thinking, yes, i can study music, where a lot of other people started looking at different careers that had more money in them. I never though 'well, i might not make enough money if i study music', i always thought, 'i'm good at this, i enjoy this and something will come my way'