After a series of false starts, crappy, dead-end jobs, and a long span of unemployment, I’m 30 and I’ve managed no career foothold. I feel ashamed and self-conscious about it, since I’m well-educated (liberal arts… blah) and I have skills and it’s hard to explain why I never got there, but I tried, and I was unlucky. So that’s that.
My husband has a job he loves that supports our household, so there’s really no need for me to earn money. After spending most of my life trying to make financial ends meet, I feel at a loss.
I look around me and see most people defining their lives through their jobs and/or their kids. But I’m not ready to be a parent now, or maybe ever. I already have a stepson that I love but his mom’s still around.
I’m not depressed; I run a lot, keep healthy, take care of the house and do errands, etc. My relationship is happy. I have friends and a community. I dedicated this past year to running a marathon, but now I’ve ran it. I feel unfulfilled and I know it’s because I don’t have a larger purpose to my life, big long-term goals.
Can anyone offer some nontraditional life paths? I’m not looking for eat/pray/love, but hearing some stories of happy non-career types and non-moms would be helpful in trying to define the next few decades of my own, probably non-career, non-mom life.
Why don’t you take a nonprofit organization under your wing and get on their committee/board and really help drive them to bigger and better things? I work for a nfp and I can tell you that every one of them would love to have community help.
Help others. That is probably the best thing you can do.
Do you work? I would worry about being totally dependent on my husband. What if something happens to him? I should be at least able to make a living wage.
It’s never too late to discover new hobbies. Have a interest in something that you haven’t yet explored in depth yet? Cooking, painting, pottery, gardening? I just took up sewing and it’s been great forcing myself to learn how to work the machine. Learning a new skill–especially a practical one that is useful to others–might be what you need to be aiming for. Fortunately there are classes you can take advantage of.
Just wanted to write in as a non-parent, non-career woman to let you know that it is indeed possible to have a very happy and fulfilling life with neither of the above.
I have a very happy 28 year marriage, enjoy the heck out of taking care of our home, cooking and gardens and have several wonderful hobbies. I play guitar, study photography, sew, garden, entertain our friends and make sure my husband comes home every night to a homemade, made from scratch dinner and a clean, orderly home. I have made it my mission to run a lovely and welcoming household and we have very little stress in our lives.
Just look to learn new things and enjoy the fact that you can have the time to devote to your home and marriage. Do not let anyone guilt you into having to volunteer or do charity work just because you are supposedly free to do so. You are in an enviable position so enjoy it while you can. Life will present challenges and opportunities and you have the time to stop, listen and smell them roses.
The most fulfilling thing I ever did was raise a guide dog puppy. Working with a guide dog organization will give you an instant network of friends (and dog people tend to be nice people, in my experience.) The only downside is that not everyone is emotionally able to raise a puppy for a year and then give it up.
Another thing you might look into, although this is definitely not for everyone, is homesteading practices. These can range from the very basic (growing vegetables, canning, making your own vinegar, vermiculture, making soap or cosmetics) to more advanced hobbies like bee-keeping, beer-making or raising chickens. Personally, I find it very fulfilling in a sort of primal way to grow my own food. But YMMV.
I found myself not working for a while in my early 30s, and felt the same way you feel. I ended up getting a job, and realizing that as much as I’d like to feel like I was just fine without having a job to do everyday, in the long term, I’m really more happy if I have something to wake up and do every day.
Even if you don’t need the money, maybe find something that you enjoy doing - not a dead-end, like your previous jobs, but something you actually find fulfilling. Seeing as you’re not working for the cash, your opportunities are much expanded. Get a job at a museum or a library, or be a trainer at a gym, or start a business doing whatever you happen to like. That’s where my head would be at.
I agree with the suggestions to volunteer. It might take some time before you find something you like. Eventually you will find something you like, or something where you can find things about it that you like, even if you don’t like doing it, and then it will change and it will be different, or maybe you won’t be able to or won’t want do it anymore. I’m 30, and while I know it’s true that there are very few (probably none at all) constants in life, you have to realize that whatever you’re doing is a phase, and is ultimately fleeting. So you take what you can from things, while hopefully giving something too. It probably won’t be like this forever so enjoy the good, and look past the bad. It’s easier said than done.
What do you like doing? Many organizations (especially those affiliated with the arts) have volunteer positions available. Find a museum, or an animal shelter, a hospital or nursing home, or a school. There are a lot of opportunities, but you have to find them.
What do you enjoy doing? What gets you sucked in (in a good way, not like video games) and not noticing time pass by? What challenges you and gets you curious, excited, motivated?
I do have a career, and kids, but a large part of my fulfillment comes from making art. My husband’s fulfillment largely comes from community projects.
Another person here asking you what sparks your interest? What really gets your attention?
I’m 34, childfree, and currently unemployed. My ‘career’ tanked partly due to logistics. I’m married to someone who needs to be close to a big city for his career, while mine requires me to be in the boonies. We married, both studied our areas of interest, but he got his foot in the door first, and when push came to shove, financially we decided we’d be better off if we stayed with his job rather than pursuing mine. I tried similar fields with no luck, did some post-grad work in a related field and worked for a while doing that job, but it was demoralising and soul-sucking, even though it was paid reasonably well. Since we earn more than we need with just my partner’s wage, and he loves his job while I didn’t like mine, plus other things were on hold due to our long working hours, in the end we decided we were happier doing without my income and having me contribute in other ways. Yes, I’m aware of the risk should my partner pass away and I have a ‘blank’ on my employment record, but I’m willing to take that risk, considering how much happier we are now that we’re both pursuing our interests (even though his are paid and mine currently are not - though I have plans to earn some scraps here and there off my interests).
So it is possible. You just need to identify what will make you happy (as an individual and as a unit), what is feasible, and what is practical. You need to define your own life - you can’t get other people to do it for you. It has to come from you, or it won’t be fulfilling. Ask yourself why you feel self-conscious and ashamed. Is it expectations coming from you, or from others? And feel very grateful that you have the choice - I feel thankful every day.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond! I see a lot of great suggestions here…
I guess I haven’t thought about volunteering because I still have such a bitter attitude when it comes to working. I had (what I thought to be) a great career trajectory a few years out of college, but I fell off the rails in 2008 and found myself in one of those positions where I didn’t have enough experience to compete with the lifers but too much experience to start from scratch. I spent three years unemployed and battled a lot of depression around people not valuating my skills worthy of employment/paycheck. So the idea of donating my services brings that to the surface and I think, oh, now I am a volunteer because no one’s willing to pay me for my time. I know it’s not true, but that’s how it feels inside my head.
I used to love being creative… writing, doing art, being a member of a choir, etc. But it’s different as an adult… there’s pressure to either do it REALLY well and make something out of it, or do something else instead. I also love running and being outdoors, but it’s the same wall-- I am not a GREAT runner, so it’s not like I can coach anyone or be a part of a team.
I do love cooking and I’m setting my mind to learning how to sear the perfect steak. My husband has done a lot of cooking in the past (I’m more of a baker), but I’d love to bring my skills up in that area. I also bit the bullet and signed up to volunteer at a local eating disorder clinic, since I struggled with that in the past.
Thanks especially for this. My brother often asks what I “do all day” in a derogatory way (but he is unhappily employed and wishes he made more money, so I’m sure that is coming out in his judgement). When I told people I liked to write, they immediately assumed I wanted to do it professionally. Like, if you’re educated and capable, people want to pigeonhole you into a career. Did you find that people questioned your home-hobbies when they first developed? Or, 28 years ago, when you first married, was it different?
Your life sounds ideal to me. I’d love to have some time to myself and do all the housekeeping really well and at my own pace for myself and a husband I loved. Instead, I do it all hurredly and tiredly after I come home from work, for a husband I resent for not pulling his weight. And the demands of work cause me no little bit of stress.
if you still want something more to do, could you take on a foster child? But I agree with others, find some volunteer work. That kichen gig sounds great.
>So the idea of donating my services brings that to the surface and I think, oh, now I am a volunteer because no one’s willing to pay me for my time. I know it’s not true, but that’s how it feels inside my head.
This is really a shame. If you could see your way to help somebody that can’t pay you for your time, somebody who really doesn’t have the power to, maybe the feeling would shift?
I do a fair amount of work with LGBT issues, but it is a struggle to manage doing that along with doing what I am supposed to be doing - and I’ve been working in technology for 40 years, and fairly hard, and it can be tiring. I think I’d really like to try the chance to throw myself further into the LGBT stuff, like maybe some youth shelters, or possibly supporting political education or something.
I also really wish I could find the time and energy to work with a cat shelter a couple miles from home, because I sure do love cats, and there has to be a lot of work to do there. I can carry more pounds of cat poop around all day than you might guess, and still love them (I do 60 lbs of it every week and it feels like kind of a labor of love).
This is unlikely to be up your alley, but as a hobby kind of thing, I have become interested in little single board computers lately, and microcontrollers. These things are amazing! I would greatly enjoy throwing myself into them, but I leave for work about 7 every morning, and get home around 7 in the evening, and I’m really kind of tired - I wind up reading about them, maybe, but not doing much. I would jump at the chance to spend next week pretending I’m going to work but actually hiding out in my shop/office writing programs and connecting wires and doing experiments.
Honestly, in your case it doesn’t sound like a lack of focus, as much as a fear of focus. You seem to have some perfectionism in you (and that’s classic with eating disorders, as I’m sure you know). You seem scared to throw yourself in to anything lest you fail at it.
I would honestly suggest seeing a counselor who could help you learn to mange your expectations, find fulfillment in the process as much as the results, and learn to gain satisfaction from striving towards personal, internally set goals.
You seem to believe that if you can’t be the best at something, there’s no point doing it.
You like being creative, but feel pressure to excel at it or you have to give it up? Where is that pressure coming from? It sounds like you’ll never be happy as long as you measure yourself against perfection and fail to be perfect enough… Would you rather do something you enjoy, or would you rather be seen / see yourself as perfect?
I’m “on the wrong side of 40” and find myself without a career, children or a spouse for that matter. Because of my age and lack of career, I don’t plan to have children. A few years ago, I revived a talent-based interest that preoccupied my youth. It was my little gift to myself to provide my life with some moments of entertainment, if nothing else, as I grow older. And I think I’ll finally work on straightening out my golf swing at some point.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but have you considered actually going out and getting a job?
Honestly, most people derive their primary fullfillment from either their career or their family. Or at the very least, these activities take up so much of their day that they simply don’t have time for some sort of existential crisis.
You could go the stereotypical single / childless / jobless / too much time on my hands route of training for marathons, cooking, volunteering and other various hobbies and activities. But I often wonder if people derive real satisfaction and fullfullment from these things, or if it’s just something to occupy their time like a book club with 5 women you can’t stand.
I’m not a perfectionist, and I don’t feel pressure to be perfect. I feel pressure to justify my life when my family or friends ask me what I do and I don’t have an answer (“I’m an X”). I’m working at building my life, but I’m insecure about it, I always thought I’d do something great, and, on top of that, I wonder, like msmith537 does, about whether or not people without jobs/kids feel like they spend their lives entertaining themselves.
I could just go out and try to find a job, and wind up doing something for peanuts, but my husband is embroiled in his startup and, right now, it’s best for me to be at home taking care of shit. But that’s not really the point.