There are things one can learn to do, and then there are things ones naturally abilities, or lack there of, limit them from doing. Today, I feel incredibly lost, afraid, and unsure of my next steps. I was hoping by this part of my life I’d have my shit together. Not so. It appears no one really has their shit together, just some people are better at faking it until it starts to make a bit more sense.
I am deeply saddened by the situation. I know I spend too much time caught up in what I am unable to do so my productivity on the things I am able to do is reduced as well. It’s not an ideal situation to say the least. I’m contemplating a complete career change but I’m terrified and while I have many interests, I don’t know where I’d actually be sustainably successful. I do know that the only thing that makes me happy is helping other people. The highlight of my last week was helping a woman from another country who didn’t speak English understand how to use the ticketing machine at the train station.
While I am inspired by helping people, when I feel my job does not actually help anyone it makes me go bonkers. When I see that instead of helping I am actually hurting other people, I drop into a deep depression. While I’m not sure I would have been consistently responsible enough to be a doctor or anything, I fear that my actual calling was some form of healthcare, but I never understood myself enough to pursue much of anything. I just rolled with the punches, and the punches sent me along this bumpy, somewhat lucrative ride which leads me where I am today – completely lost, afraid, alone, and hating myself more and more for not just getting my shit together.
Yet at the end of the day it’s clear that I do not have what it takes to be successful in this role. I’ve had the great fortune to be able to experience leadership and see that I am not built to be this kind of leader. It’s rather astounding that I have managed to get this far, though I am an imposter and cannot succeed further. While I know this sounds overly dramatic, the reality is that I’m too sensitive for business. I also cannot make fast decisions and spend too much time overanalyzing things I shouldn’t while too little time under analyzing things I should [analyze.] How much can I really improve? When do I put up the white flag and surrender? And, where do I go once I do?
You’ve been doing an awful lot of navel-staring in the past months. Has it helped?
If working in healthcare was financially lucrative, would you be doing it now? I’m guessing you’re starting to realize that money isn’t everything — it certainly doesn’t bring happiness. So just going for the bucks isn’t the key to contentment. Some of our happiest times have been when we had the least $$.
You haven’t been happy with your current choices. Why not seriously pursue something in healthcare? An LPN doesn’t require that much training in the long run…and I’d bet you would be eligible for financial aid. (Hopefully you have some savings, too.)
At the very least, once you started training, you would know very quickly if this is something you want to do.
Now stop beating yourself up, and give yourself the freedom to choose something you WANT to do. You can do this!
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I say stay the course. You are so close to your goal of saving $500k by 35, it would be a shame to give up now. Think about seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist, they are much better at getting you to resolve problems.
That is a good point. I have seen a therapist before but I need one again. It is hard with the work schedule, but I will make it a point to seek out help.
I would strongly recommend you talk with someone who works in healthcare before making that sort of career transition. Yes, you get to help people in a way but working healthcare is stressful as fuck and it is definitely not for everyone. This sudden transition seems like (to an anonymous internet commenter who doesn’t really know you well) a “grass is always greener” thing than a lifelong calling.
That said, if it’s something you are really interested in pursuing, go volunteer at a hospital / clinic. Go back to school for nursing or as a tech. Do something! Because you don’t seem happy right now. And it might just be you’re under a lot of stress, but even then the best self-care would be to take yourself out of this context which is eating you up. Vacation, because you need it. Move out of SV, because you need it. Just please take some steps outside of your heavily-regimented life path because you seem miserable on the road you’re on.
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Thanks Taylor. I agree with you. I’m scared of change, and this would be a huge step outside of my current path. I realize healthcare is also extremely stressful. I think the stress is different, though. It’s stressful in a way that SHOULD be stressful. For instance, situations may actually be life or death, so my value system would align with that type of stress. Perhaps there are other more political stressors in healthcare that I don’t know about which would drive me batty, but at the end of the day I actually like stress, I just don’t enjoy being stressed for constantly changing objectives which change not always for complete logic. When I was younger I wanted a job where I could be rewarded for being different but now I just want to fit in and help others. I guess I’m maturing. — I probably won’t make a change just yet, but I do like the idea of volunteering at a clinic to see if such a transition would make sense for me.