There’s a way across the river, but you have to be brave, willing to take the leap from stone to stone, open to choosing your path when you have already jumped away from the safety of the shore.
What difficult crossing in your life are you trying to navigate?
I didn’t get in to grad school. I was hoping to get a master’s in library science, seeing that I’ve been working in libraries since I was 13, and it would open numerous doors to a well-paying career. (There is $20k difference between jobs requiring it and jobs that don’t.) Even then, I was sort of “settling”–it’s the only field I’ve never been fired from a job in, I’m extremely risk averse, and since I’m 35 and have been out of the workforce for too long (though volunteering), the graduate program would be a huge help launching me into my career. I really wasn’t passionate about it. It was the only work I’ve ever done that didn’t suck.
I am not passionate about anything. I have no clue what I want to do. I’m still defaulting to library work, for now, at least. Sometimes I think another career would be a good fit for me, but then there are too many obstacles–like I couldn’t get into the necessary graduate program because my undergraduate degree is unrelated (and making up the undergrad coursework would make the endeavor unfeasible, especially financially) and my GPA is too low for many programs.
Meanwhile, our finances are not in good shape, so I’d better start earning money ASAP. But I’m also avoiding jobs that would be bad for me and my mental health, such as retail, in which the prevailing practice is to have inconsistent, erratic schedules. Meanwhile I feel guilty for not taking any job I can find, for being picky.
I feel like, in this stream metaphor, I’m likely to slip on a wet rock, fall backwards, split my head open on another rock, die, and be eaten by local carnivores.
Maggie, I’ve found that there’s always another something around the corner that becomes the way onward. Mainly in my love lives, so to speak, I have gone through failures of both kinds. If I wanted to marry, he didn’t; if he wanted to, I didn’t. I have buffeted between both; now, I find that it doesn’t matter. I am at a stage in my life where I find that I can enjoy relationships of all kinds that fill my life. They don’t depend on money. I hope that you will find a way that shows you contentment, even if it’s volunteering for something you are passionate about.