Time to Commit to.. Something?
AKA holy f***, I’m about to turn 30
It’s been hitting me over the past couple of months, the reality of leaving my 20s behind…
This anxiety over aging has been a slow build.. swinging from apathy to dread on a daily, even hourly basis. Some days, the idea of turning 30 feels mundane — simply another day & step in life. But other times, it feels heavy, like my long-term success is at stake — as though my life status the moment my biological clock strikes 30 will define the rest of my life.
And let me tell you, there’s a lot about my current life situation that puts me on edge — not living on my own, lacking a consistent job/income, and generally not feeling grounded in almost any capacity (oh ya, along with the collective instability of living through a pandemic).
[I wanna take a moment here to express gratitude for being able to live with family, do part-time work and not worry about struggling to pay my bills. And to offer some consideration to the many Americans grappling with being evicted or not having enough food to feed their family.]
It’s not as though getting older is hitting me for the first time in life, but it’s distressing me with increased severity these days.
The past week, with less work and more free time on my hands, I’ve been grappling with recurring discomfort over trying to figure out what the hell a sustainable life looks like for me.
As I continue to engage with my anxiety, I’ve come to the un-shocking conclusion that my outlook on life might be part of the problem. More specifically, my lack of commitment to any particular path.
Since graduating from college, I’ve dabbled in a variety of entry-level positions from line cook to teacher to glorified data entry at a start-up, and with each change, I’ve found myself increasingly dissatisfied.
I get that entry-level positions are inherently lame, but it’s hard to push through daily dissatisfaction when the end-goal of the career isn’t even appealing. So inevitably, I end up jumping ship in the hopes that the next job will be a better fit, less bullshit, more fulfilling.
As I approach a new decade of life, I’m coming to terms with the repercussions of not building a career. Looking around at peers, I feel like I’m lagging behind — no career, no house, no nice car, no husband/wife, no prospects.
I get that comparing myself to others isn’t the ultimate measure of success but it surely means something, right? I don’t mind being different, unconventional, but I can’t seem to own my lack of direction the way I used to. Freedom of mobility doesn’t mean much when you can’t afford to go anywhere (ha).
I’ve also held onto romanticized ideas of falling into something that really suits me, that I feel inherently connected to — you know, like a rom-com but for a career. But so far it hasn’t panned out.. maybe my dream job hasn’t gotten the memo yet.
I’ve dabbled in such a wide variety of job experiences that I’ve entered the realm of jack of all trades, master of none. Which makes sense in terms of feeling out what it is I want to do, but 14 years of work history later, and I still feel stumped. Not stumped as to what interests me but stumped as to what I’m willing to slog away at in order to financially support myself with.
Most jobs I’ve worked have made me feel like an average performance was the bare minimum, and that in order to truly succeed, I’d have to pour more than 40 hours’ worth of my time, energy and life force into it. Which is just so.freaking.lame.
The pressure to give so much of my being over to a job continues to grate on me. I don’t understand how for a purportedly advanced society, people working more hours for less money has become the accepted outcome of “progress.”
It’s hard to not be angry, salty and about to lose it when a boomer talks to me about being entitled or not wanting to work without acknowledging that their past opportunities are much different than my current ones.
And ya, I get that focusing on problems and frustrations aren’t going to solve anything, but that doesn’t invalidate the need to continue to address generational discrepancies so that modern workers don’t feel as though it’s their fault that they’re not experiencing the same ease of success as the previous generation.
So where does this leave me? At a crossroads, it seems. Obviously I gotta suck it up to some extent.
But man, I have no idea what that’ll look like. Grad school and more college debt? Taking on another $30,000 entry-level position that crushes my soul and barely pays my bills? Focusing on a higher-earning path even if my heart’s not in it?
There’s privilege worth acknowledging in being able to choose a path versus being pressured into one or having to take a job out of necessity or desperation. But with that being said, the compromise of self for the sake of sustainable work sucks no matter what — especially when it feels like choosing between mental health and a paycheck.
I’m hoping for some sort of light at the end of this tunnel. Because it’s not a matter of me not wanting to work — I want to find purpose, feel valuable & useful, contribute positively to society. But the thing is, I’ve rarely found these in jobs.
So I don’t know, maybe I’m looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places or in the wrong way— maybe it’s something I’ll simply stumble upon while doing other things or maybe it’s more about creating it versus finding it.
I honestly have no idea. But one thing’s for sure: I gotta commit to something.
