“Your net worth is $3M — how can you not be a functioning human being?”
If anyone knows what is in my bank account, especially that the majority of it is from my personal savings and investments (even though I now track net worth collectively with my husband), the response to my explaining that I’m a barely-functioning adult human is this.
But it’s the honest-to-god truth. I’ve spent my life struggling. Not in the whoa-is-me sense, but just in my reality. It’s some combination of early childhood trauma (growing up in a domestic violence household), genetics, and whatever else makes me up. I’ve lost so many jobs over the years, from my earliest firing when I left a purse out at at train station at a little jewelry and accessories kiosk I briefly attempted to work at, to my most recent axe at the startup where I was on the executive team and failed to live up to expectations (I lasted a whopping four months).
I’ve long been embarrassed by my recurrent job loss. I look in the mirror and ask myself why. Everyone gets fired or laid off on occasion, but I’ve made it a habit. If we’re being honest here, I’ll let you in on a little secret — I’ve been fired nine times. Only ONE of those was what I’d consider a lay off. The rest were due to performance.
The good news? When I get the axe one more time, I’ll have a nifty clean ebook title “How I’ve been fired 10 times in 2 decades and have saved $3M.” Or something more punchy than that. I do like clean numbers.
No one understand how I’ve done this (outside of my husband’s $500k or so contribution to that). I don’t either. How — somehow — through luck, tenacity, fear, masochism, or some other force, I’ve managed to pick myself up again and again and push forward in the most positive and lucrative way possible. Loose a $190k job for being too socially awkward and unproductive to be an executive? Three months later, get another job that pays $250k a year through another contact that liked my from a prior position.
I kept jumping from one thing to the next. For the last 20 years, give or take. And every morning I’d wake up not knowing WHAT to do. My best days were the days I was working on a project where the task was clear and I could use creativity and my superpower of listening to a whole bunch of mildly sociopathic people who think THEY ARE RIGHT at all times and make them ALL happy (thanks childhood trauma and ability to walk delicately on eggshells!) This is not to say those sociopath-lites were untalented or wrong (some of the time), but…
I’m worn down and burnt out by trying so hard to make everyone else happy. It seems I can’t do it anymore. The asks may be impossible, or I may just be incapable, or both. I’m tired. I’m depressed. If it weren’t for my adorable sweet little kiddos, and certainly if I hadn’t somehow built this substantial cushion to see me through the dark times, I might be more serious about making an escape plan from this life.
But that doesn’t change that I’m 40 and don’t know what to do. I finally agreed to take antidepressants and am finagling doses with my psychiatrist to see if anything will help (but can’t take ADHD meds since I’m nursing). I’ve tried ADHD meds before and they just made me a bit manic, but I’ve never worked with someone to adjust and monitor until maybe I could fake myself out for being a real life functioning human being TM.
Every single path I consider is terrifying to me…
Stay the course — somehow get a job in what I’ve been doing and just do better next time. I’ve applied to 150 jobs in what I’ve been doing and haven’t had any luck. The market sucks at the moment so it’s not just me not getting work, but every job post I read makes me die a little inside… just knowing even if someone out there buys that I can do the job, the reality is I can’t. I don’t think that way. I don’t know if there are any classes that can teach me to be good in the career.
It feels like I have to start over anyway… so if I’m starting over, why not do something new…
But then I go down the path of what a mess it will be to invest in myself for any new careers. What if I spend $10k, $50k, or more, and I’m back where I started? That seems like a waste. Is it better to just try to live as frugally as possible (which I’m also bad at but getting better at — it’s just my $7k mortgage makes it impossible to cut down enough to cover our COL even without summer camp and vacations and dinners out) and get a low-paid routine job? The answer to that is no — as I’m pretty horrible at low-paid routine jobs. I do better in roles that require strategic thought, that keep me on my toes, that give me a little dopamine rush on a project that needs to get done and will have some sort of stage to show for it.
I also like helping people. I’m scared to put myself in a position where I am responsible for another person, and I don’t actually see how I can help others, but I do find my greatest satisfaction comes from actually helping other people — shockingly, since I’m a narcissist of some sort probably.
So — I don’t know what to do. The other options:
MBA > TBD: I’d focus on quant and finance, an area I have -0% experience in. I was in advanced math in 10th grade and then in 11th grade they kicked me out and I had to take the “easy 9th grade math” to graduate high school since I couldn’t focus enough to mange through FST. I bought a bunch of calculus books on a whim a few years ago. They are sitting in my garage.
CFP: I like the IDEA of being a CFP. I like helping people with their money. But I don’t like the idea that being a CFP is really being a sales person. I couldn’t work for a company that sold anything I didn’t believe in. And I don’t have it in me to build a business that requires contacting people, making them clients and keeping them happy. I’m also interested in helping people make and manage budgets, but not sure there’s much money in that.
UX/HCI: designing user experiences is interesting to me. This one is a recurring theme. However, I’m so far behind in learning this area and don’t have the technical or research skills for a job like this. I could go back to school but the market is flooded with bootcamp grads and to get a grad degree from any reputable institution requires a solid portfolio. It will take years to even get there. Feels impossible. And I’m not sure I’d be any good at it.
UX content strategiest: an interesting option with no clear path to obtainment. All the UX content strategy roles I’ve seen require experience and a portfolio in this. Which I do not have. So, next…
Therapist: if helping people is my goal, this could be a good career change. But who am I to help others when I’m this much of a mess? I can’t exactly miss appointments with my clients. What if I say something and they get mad at me? I’m bad in tense situations.
Coder: per my other post, this could be interesting. I really want to feel like I have a skillset that is valuable where I can actually DO something because I know how to do it and deliver quality work that — works. Not work in a field where success is subjective. But I’m scared of this path for so many reasons. Per the above, my quant abilities are what abilities would be if they were divided by 0. I like patterns and solving problems, but am I smart enough to do this?
Or… I don’t know. I don’t want to be a stay at home mom forever. I’m enjoying it now and wouldn’t mind it for the next few years. I just need to figure out something I can do and do well. Something where I can wake up in the morning and not dread the day. Is that possible? Am I hopeless? I don’t know. I know I’m not doing well. I haven’t been for a long time. I need hope. A change. A dream. Something.