An unanswered call
To love what you do, you must do what you love.
My professional career has been an example of the Peter Principle.
For two decades, I failed upwards beyond my means and skills until I finally hit a wall and found myself falling back down. Quite frankly, I am surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Twenty years is a long time to hide in plain sight before someone notices.
When I discuss this with people, they suggest I have imposter syndrome, though I do not. They tell me I am good at what I do and would not have made it this far if I wasn’t, though I am not. I know myself well enough to have a reasonable idea of my strengths and weaknesses. The required skillset for this particular career is not one that I have.
I have made it this far by grinding it out. I work long hours, spend a lot of time reviewing my work, ask for help, and search for answers online. This leads to patchwork solutions that do not always fit together well.
When you are the only one in your particular position, it is hard for others to notice. When you are on a team with people doing the same work, everyone notices. That is where I am now.
I have taken a long, hard look at myself and my life. Working through this with my family, therapist, and even some colleagues, I have come to accept the fact that I don’t belong here and that is okay. I don’t need to pretend anymore.
The past few years have been really rough for my family and for myself. This struggle played a part in it. I found myself unable to get out of bed for work, and my misery was palpable. I couldn’t hide it. Everyone close to me knows I’m miserable and they know why.
I have gone weeks without speaking a word at work and months without smiling. I have been resentful and full of anger. How did I let this happen? Why didn’t I do something about it before? How am I supposed to change careers at this point in my life when both the job market and the economy are terrible? Though hiring managers may not admit it, ageism is a real thing.
To say I have been unhappy is an understatement. A more apt way to describe it is suicidal. Of course, other factors played into that extreme emotion and mental state, but my professional life played a key role in it.
Years ago, I started my own business. I opened a small market with reasonable hours and dreamt of my kids working there with me someday. A family I knew did something similar when I was in high school and I was a part of it. I liked the setup. They worked hard but got home in time to make dinner and eat together as a family. How nice was that? They were self-sufficient without sacrificing quality time with their children. That is exactly what I wanted.
We sold our house and signed a lease on a cheap apartment so I could leave my job and follow my dream. I could work toward being happy. Then, the buyers backed out at the last minute.
I found myself with a business I did not have time to run by myself and right back in the line of work that made me miserable. So, I was working 60-80 hours each week trying to pay the bills and get my business off the ground. My family sacrificed a lot to make this happen, but it did not.
The market grew into one restaurant, and then another. The number of hours I worked each week continued to increase and I was so burned out that those years were a blur. We invested a lot in the businesses, and while people seemed to love it and we were constantly booked, I had to reinvest so much into it that I never once was able to take a paycheck from it.
I had to take a leave of absence from work after the threat of suicide became too real, and then another this past year. It took a long time to figure out who I was, what I wanted, and how to make strides towards being happy.
Nonetheless, a cold, hard truth remains: the changes I needed were unlikely to happen, at least any time soon. If I am to finally answer the call, it will take a lot of time and effort. I will have to once again work long hours and risk burnout. I will miss time with my family.
Weighing the positives and negatives will be a daunting task that will involve risks no matter the decision. Even if I give it a go, there is no guarantee of success. So, do I assume staying the course is the lower-risk option, or will that cause my mental health and quality of life to deteriorate? What impacts will it have on my family? Which option will be better for them?
I could stay the course and be fired next week. It might be damned near impossible to find a new job. I could try to make the change and fail spectacularly.
Something, something, death and taxes.
My life has become a cautionary tale for my children. I tell them to do what makes them happy. If skipping college and selling hot dogs at baseball games does the trick, go for it! If becoming an ER doctor who works nonstop but gets massive paychecks is the answer, I will support it.
My parents pushed for me to become a doctor. I think social status was important for my mom. I was waitlisted for a pre-med program to which she applied on my behalf without telling me. I was given no choice but to enter college as a chemistry major, even though neither science nor math was my forte.
At one point, my parents came home with a brochure from a Porsche dealership and said they would buy me one if I became a doctor. I had no idea how they could possibly come up with that money, but my mom was dead set on finding a way to make this work.
It eventually did work, but not on me. My sister was pushed into a nursing career at our mother’s behest. I don’t know how much she loves the work, but my mom had cancer at that point, and my sister had a hard time saying no to her.
Ultimately, I did end up studying what I loved but eventually exited my career as a writer for a terrible reason. The people around me had prestigious jobs and the seed my mom planted so many years earlier about social status and a job that sounded important bloomed.
I wormed my way into a career that sounded fancy and that required intelligence to do. I try not to be consumed by regret but, if I were, this decision would be toward the top of the list.
My advice to anyone not embedded too deeply into a profession is the same as what I tell my children: find out what makes you happy and do it. Don’t chase a paycheck. Money will not make you happy. A fancy title means nothing and you have nothing to prove to anyone. Don’t do what you may someday regret.