Let me begin by stating that I've been down in the doldrums for quite some time. All work and no play will do that to a girl.
I dragged Inbal to go with me to visit some of my family, and in the car on the way back tonight, we were talking and I started put it all into words -- but unfortunately, the words didn't stop when I got out of the car.
The gist of it is that I think I've been going about it all wrong. Everything. For years.
A million years ago -- or back in high school -- I wanted to do something creative. Write, draw, make movies, stuff like that. And despite studying abroad and taking art history classes, somehow along the way I wound up pre-law. Even then, I thought I'd do something noble, like working for a non-profit, or maybe being a public defender, or whatever.
Now I'm a tax lawyer.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
So now I'm left wondering how I wound up so far afield of where I thought I was going.
I rent a room and I fill the spaces with
Wood in places to make it feel like home
But all I feel's alone
It might be a quarterlife crisis
Or just the stirring in my soul
--John Mayer, Why Georgia
It's just starting to dawn on me that maybe I'm following a path that someone else set for me. And that I'm scared of not being successful. And for some reason, I've been equating success with money.
That's wrong, isn't it?
And if it is, how do I fix it?
Now I'm wondering if this is really some kind of quarterlife crisis. Although, I think I prefer Douglas Coupland's term "mid-twenties breakdown," but I'm no longer in my twenties, and quite frankly, I'm not likely to quit my real job, move out to California, and take a McJob just yet.
4 comments:
I think fear governs a lot of us, Dara. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being alone etc. It tends to rule what we do -- I'll take this job for fear that a better one won't come along or I'll be with this person because who knows, I might never find the One. So long as fear prevails, happiness will be elusive. Sometimes it's just a matter of changing the angle of how you look at things by just a few degrees. Then suddenly everything snaps into focus.
Hey, I didn't sit through two hours of Wayne Dyer for nothing.
you're echoing my thoughts. I've Been having these thoughts. and I read this at 430am when I couldn't sleep, but wow. You just said basically what I've wanted to say.
It'll get better. It Has to!
I think you are lucky, in a way, as you actually have stuff in your head that speaks to you about grasping for more, making changes, etc...I know what you mean about feeling as if choices you have made aren't gelling w/the person you thought you were a million years ago. However(and this will sound corny), I don't think it is ever too late to set your life in a new direction...
Thanks for your support guys (and girl). It's good to know I'm not alone with the realization that my path is leading somewhere that I'm not sure that I really want to go.
Alas, I suspect that this is the easy part, and the fixing it is the hard part. But I'm hopeful that it'll sort itself out in time.
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