I’m 38 and Still Don’t Know What I Want to be When I Grow Up
Losing my way in order to move forward
It’s a common topic of discussion between my kids and I. What do you want to be when you grow up? We’ve been through a few different stages with my son. His first big dream was to be a train driver. My husband and I used to take him down to the train tracks and we’d spend hours watching the diesel trains attach their long loads.
We’d build elaborate train tracks together. My son had every single Thomas the Tank Engine train character, and we’d re-enact dramatic train situations together. I knew he was starting to move on from this career choice when he started to refer to me as the ‘fat controller’ — geez, thanks kid.
A train driver. This is a good dream, although with modern technology and driverless trains, he may just be out of a job before he finishes high school.
His next idea was to be a plumber. This was a little out of left field, but I was happy with the choice. Plumbers are useful and I’m bound to have a blocked toilet or burst water pipe that will need his services, at some stage. When I mentioned that being a plumber can be a bit of a dirty job, he quickly changed his mind and decided he was going to be a famous YouTuber. He started making his own gaming walkthrough videos and he’s had about 23 views, of which I think 20 were me!
Next, my son made a very simple life choice — he wanted to be a billionaire. Easy huh? He’s been experimenting with a few different business ideas. He made some t-shirt designs to sell on Redbubble, picked things up from the rubbish dump, cleaned and then resold them for a profit, started a car cleaning business… the list goes on.
He got a little tired of all the hard work and now my son is in a place of having no idea what he wants to do when he grows up. He’s not bothered by his indecision and has a few years before needing to make any choices regarding his future, he is only 12.
Me however, I’m a 38 year old woman and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life.
I’m not content in my work life, I’m bored and restless.
Am I having a midlife crisis? Is it just my ADHD that’s giving me grief and prompting my boredom? I have no clue. I’m just all a bit lost.
I’m a fairly educated person, I have a PhD amongst a few other nominals and currently juggle four different jobs working clinically as a diabetes nurse educator, a researcher and teacher at university and a project and program manager with two different health organisations. Previously I’ve been someone who loved my work and loved to work. It energised me and made me feel like I was doing something worthwhile.
Right now, however, I’m a bit done.
It all feels exhausting and mundane and monotonous. I find myself procrastinating about work tasks and putting off responding to emails. This is something that is totally out of character for me. It’s all just blah and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.
In Australia, a person can’t retire and receive government benefits until they turn 67 years old. That means I’ve got another 29 years of my working life to negotiate and dedicate myself to. That’s longer than I’ve been in the workforce.
When I started my first job at age 14 in a takeaway shop making burgers, I never thought I’d get to the ripe age of 38 and be hitting an existential crisis.
What the heck is wrong with me?
Am I burnout, depressed or just really bored?
Research indicates that young people today will have seventeen different jobs across five different career paths. Maybe it’s time I diversified and left the healthcare industry to explore my creative side — to sing and act on Broadway (not that I have the skills to match this idea) or become a florist or photographer. Maybe I should be like all these incredible writers on Medium that have ditched their day jobs to write and are making a great steady income, unlike my $1.24 cents per month.
The thought of change feels scary. Branching out into the unknown makes me feel like all the work I’ve put into getting me where I am in my work, would be a big, fat, useless waste of time. Yet staying where I am feels suffocating. The security of a good income keeps me in the monotony and surely it’s not realistic to throw that away to become something I’m not naturally good at?
Can you see the internal contrary dialogue that is going on inside me?
This morning as I was driving to the airport, heading away for a few days for work, I was listening to the radio. The person talking mentioned that yesterday, as she went to pay for her coffee order, the person at the counter casually said that it had already been paid for by the person before her. She was a little taken a back, but felt super blessed by the gesture. She decided to ‘pay it forward’ and pay for the next person’s coffee. The lady behind the counter mentioned that she was the 16th person this morning who had kept the chain of giving going. Wow.
It seems that people just want to give and to help others. This got me reflecting. For many years in my work I’ve strived to be great at what I do, and not just great, the best. I’ve given above and beyond of my energy, time and devotion to exceed expectations in the workplace.
As I now get older, the things I value are beginning to change. Whilst previously I’ve wanted to be invited to the important meetings and loved to ‘network’ to build collaborations that may help me professionally, I’m now just a bit over it. I’m over trying to impress and I’m tired of fake connections.
People who name drop, serial meeting attendees, Twitter big noters, LinkedIn self promotion — it all makes me cringe. I need to see the value of my work and in this moment, I can’t quite see how it is helping people.
A simple gesture of buying an unknown ‘someone’ a coffee, taking the time to help an older person put their groceries in the car, cooking meals for someone who is unwell, supporting a friend through a hard time and doing a job that feels and is meaningful has been lost on me.
I admit it, I’ve been a selfish, self-promoting wanker.
Now with this realisation comes the hard part of negotiating what making a change could look like for me. It might not necessarily mean changing my job, but taking the time to be more mindful of those around me, being more willing to engage with others to support and help them, giving without expectation of return and focussing on adding value to others’ lives, rather than topping up my own.
So, what do I want to be when I grow up?
I still have no idea. What I am sure of however, is how I want to live my life and how I want to be remembered.
Kind, generous, sacrificial and genuine.
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