I’m in mostly the same position. I don’t hate my job, but I also don’t love it, and I keep wondering if there could be something more, but I don’t know what that something more would be.
I love my house, though, and the bank loves my mortgage payment, so I keep working so I can keep living here, but then I feel like a whore, but who isn’t a whore, right? Doesn’t everyone do distateful things for money? (Except my mom. She loves her job. My mom is not a whore!) Mr. Rochester said, in Jane Eyre, “Most things free-born with do anything for a salary.” That was my screen saver for a while, till it got awkward when my boss saw it.
I wish I wanted kids. That would at least be a plan. But I don’t know what I want to do with my life, except (a) I don’t want kids and (b) I think I need to do something different. Maybe something that would help people. Except the helping-people jobs don’t pay well, and I like my house, and the bank likes my mortgage payment. So I’m a whore. Sue me.
This would all be okay, I suppose, except that it seems like everyone in my life is either in the same position I am – needing to make a change but not knowing what or how – or is in denial, and is an angry and bitter person.
Maybe that’s what I need to do – amp up the angry and bitter. The angry and bitter mortgage whore.
There have been a lot of changes in my life over the last five years, and I still don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of it. I suppose I’m trying to re-invent myself, but I spend a fair amount of time wondering why I’m bothering. I feel like I’m just drifting through life, waiting to see what happens next without really making much effort to influence it. (Does that make sense?).
I know exactly what you mean, Jodi. My life is pretty damned good, but there are still some things that are just…damned irritating. I don’t like my job; there’s not much to like about it but the pay and the hours. I don’t hate it, though, and I have little motivation to go get a better one. (But your husband has a great job that pays all the bills! You don’t even have to work!) People do have to work - it’s good for your soul. Just, you know, not at this job.
I want to design landscapes on my computer, but the landscape design programmes start at $1800 (the one I’d really like is $3500!). I’ve done some designing by hand, then I tried the 30 day trial for the computer programme, and I ain’t never going back to doing it by hand. If I was super-sure I wanted to make a living designing, I guess I could cough up the $3500, but damn, that’s a lot of money for something I’m basically dabbling in. (But you have a good computer, and you have the skills. And you could do it by hand. And you can even consider buying a $3500 programme! That isn’t even an option for lots of people.)
My teeth have been extra special crappy this year - I blew through my entire dental budget plus both of our discretionary medical allowances plus an extra $1000 already this year, and I have another tooth that is probably cracked and needing a root canal and crown. I’m trying to make it hold on until next January when the dental insurance re-sets by eating mostly on the other side, and now those teeth seem to be getting sore from overuse. (At least you have dental insurance.)
We’re almost ready to sell our fixer-upper house on the five-year fixing up plan, and I’m having some worries about buying/selling/moving. I’ve never done the buy and sell shuffle before - I have visions of finding the perfect house, and not being able to sell our old house so the perfect house slips away. And there’s the whole actual moving thing - moving sucks. (Same chorus as you, Jodi - At least you have a house. You got on the real estate bus before it accelerated to light speed.)
LurkMeister, that makes perfect sense. I feel like I should be taking working for a living more seriously or something - like I should have a real career, instead of just one stupid job that I can barely tolerate after the next.
On the career thing, I can’t get paid for doing what I’d really like to do. Well, I guess I could get paid for it, but tossing everything I have and putting my family through the difficulty of no income, or nearly no income, while I found myself would cause me so much guilt I just don’t do it. So I work at a job that I like but don’t love. However, I have learned to partition my emotions and feelings about things, so I look at my career as a means to an end- and the end is the life I live outside of work. I don’t think or talk about work after I leave the office, unless an issue arises that requires my involvement. Otherwise I live my life for my personal life with my family, the times we spend together, our home, our private times. That’s my life, and my job is the grease that keeps the machinery moving. I understand that this may not work for everyone, but it’s how I’ve learned to accomodate my need for an enjoyable lifestyle with my need for personal fulfillment.
My rant? My prostate is so swollen everything that’s supposed to occur with that area of my body requires so much effort that it’s pretty much sucked the enjoyment out of all of it. And I’m only 40, so the prospect of dealing with this for the rest of my life, or getting surgery, is troubling.
Don’t know what you wrote, but ISTM there’s a fine line between whining and venting and not everyone is going to mark it at the same place. As it happens, I don’t do much of either so I think I’ll give myself a pass this one time, whichever it is I engaged in.
I think your accommodation IS what the majority of people do. I think true job fulfillment is a lovely dream that is enjoyed only by a select few. The rest of us are just doin’ it for the money. If you’re able to compartmentalize and keep work at work, you’re ahead of a lot of people.
There’s a subcontractor on a project I am working on who constantly tries to take credit for my work AND throw me under the bus to hide the fact that he isn’t doing jack shit. The insane thing is that almost everybody recognizes what is going on, except for the person at the very top of this project. I am documenting my ass off, but it just pisses me off that someone who is a so-called professional (and who makes more money than I will ever make in my lifetime) would do this.
Also, an unlicensed driver hit my husband’s car and totaled it. (At least no one was hurt, though).
Also, I need more dental work and minor surgery, and I can’t really afford either.
Also, my son got sick from being at my mom’s dirty house, and I’m mad at myself for not setting a firmer limit with her. (Said limit will be set before the next visit, though…)
No doubt people are tired of hearing mine, but here they are anyway:
Friday I go in for yet *another *damn operation on my stomach. Number 7 since 03. And the doc said that *this *one will hurt! (Because the others were so much fun.)
I don’t love my job. But I need it for a while yet. (Until I can recover enough to decide where to go next.)
It looks like I may be laid off, maybe *even *tomorrow! (That would totally piss me off, I put off the surgery so that I could finish a project for them. If they lay me off a day before the surgery, I’ll be totally pissed.)
But I think my worst complaint is: I am tired of being tired. Since my operations started I am exhausted all the damn time. Some days worse than others and sometimes it makes me unpleasant. After all kinds of tests we have determined that: Yes, I am deficient on a number of vitamins and minerals, but now I take supplements. No, I don’t have apnea, but I don’t sleep fully anyway. We suspect that the stomach muscles have been cut enough that the pain I feel when I turn over wakes me up a little. (Picture doing 1000 sit ups, that is what my muscles feel like all the time. I don’t mind when I’m awake, but apparently it interferes with my sleep.)
As a good friend of mine tells me: waaa-waaa-waaaa. Suck it up you sissy. He’s right, sometimes I have to remind myself that you just gotta play the cards life deals ya. (But today I’m feeling all sorry for myself. )
What I meant by that was, I don’t have to work hard at not letting my job get me down. Even though I don’t love it, I compartmentalize my dislike for my career and don’t let it affect the enjoyment I feel from the rest of my life. There are many, many people who are miserable because their job makes them miserable. I decided not to let that one aspect of my life ruin my existence, so I compartmentalize it.
He’s right, sometimes I have to remind myself that you just gotta play the cards life deals ya. (But today I’m feeling all sorry for myself. )