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by INTPenis
1224 days ago
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>For me, it's a battle between "if I do something, someone's just gonna fuck it up anyway" and "I used to love this. I can still get excited by this, right?" I constantly find myself in a state of paralysis where I know what to do, I know how to do it, I even know how to do it quickly so it can be over and done, but I still just don't want to START anything. This is a much better explanation of what I was trying to say, you nailed that. I'm not a native english-speaker so I struggle with the right wording. The kids part probably stems from the classic midlife crisis feeling that I haven't accomplished anything, and I'm sure that contributed to my state. So I'm not too focused on that part really because I've lived my life so far, and chosen my partners so far, with the goal of not having kids. No instead I'm trying to reason that I need to see more of the world and meet more amazing people. I met an amazing woman last summer who was a digital nomad, and following her around the world has given me the travel bug. So I need to reason in my head and come to a logical conclusion of how best to facilitate unlimited travel, and for the moment that is to stay with my employer and at least put in enough effort that they continue to be happy with my work. And use my freedom to travel and meet people while I'm still young enough to enjoy myself. I'm coming from a 20 year long career of over-achievement, overly loyal to my employers and staying up long nights nerding out on tasks. I need to make a big switch from that to more of the do the bare minimum necessary to keep them happy and focus on the life part of work/life balance a bit more. |
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Do you think your current employer would respond well to an honest discussion about how to make the work you do more, I dunno, exciting? Envigorating? Less stressful? More meaningful? Less contact hours? Some managers would respond well to that. Others, not so much.
Dare I say it, it may also be worth talking to your partner? That’s definitely something I wish I’d done way sooner when I was seriously depressed. My partner has been so understanding and helped greatly get me back to a state where I was getting more joy out of life. For me, it was always this fear of feeling like a failure, something that is definitely intensified by having 2 people depend on you as much as a mother and child do. If they love you, they will really want to help you and you’d be crazy not to ask for their advice at least.
Worth noting that the HR department are NOT the ones to be discussing this with: they work for the company, not for you. It sounds harsh, but NEVER trust HR, no matter how nice they seem most of the time.
> the classic midlife crisis feeling that I haven't accomplished anything
Totally frivolous aside, the Germans have a word for that: “Torschlußpanik".
> From Tor + Schluss + Panik, literally “gate-shut panic”. For safety reasons city gates used to be shut at nightfall (Torschluss, from Tor + Schluss), leaving latecomers no other choice than to stay outside, thereby exposing them to various dangers.
A German once told me “yeah, but in Germany that usually hits people in their 20s”. LOL.