Or something like that...
The other day, I was talking to my friend Jameson about workplace satisfaction. He's in a business class, and they were talking about the factors that influence job satisfaction. Of course I don't know all of the details. But some of the things were pay scale and benefits, coworkers, and fulfillment from the work itself (among many other things).
Jameson found my situation interesting. I find my job itself to be tedious, indicating one factor of dissatisfaction. I like my workplace itself, I enjoy my coworkers, and my pay/benefits are acceptable. However, I am allowed to write in my spare time once my work is done, which influences my overall satisfaction with my job. While it's not the work itself, I do find satisfaction while at work.
I've been reconsidering some pretty major decisions lately--particularly my decision to go back to school. My major drive to go back to college is in that search for fulfillment. Because I'm not pursuing my original passion/major (theatre) for personal reasons, I thought that I thereby could not find satisfaction in a job that I could obtain without a degree in something else. Thus, I would go back to school to obtain that degree.
However, I'm finding that I can be fulfilled in other ways besides my job. I don't mind my job--I like the people, it's steady and consistent, and while there I can write, which is an enormous passion that I will always pursue. I've discovered that I can find a lot of fulfillment in my ward and callings there, and I'm getting involved in volunteer work that is like nothing else I've ever done before--and which brings me immense satisfaction.
So I don't know that I really want to uproot yet again. I really want to stay in my ward, I want to have some consistency there. And if I'm not unhappy, if I can find that fulfillment that I was looking for in the first place, I'm not sure I'd go back to school except for my obsessive love of school itself. At this point, I don't feel like I'm missing anything that could be gained by going back. So, while I haven't made a firm decision, I'm leaning toward staying right where I'm at.
Notes About Wilmington, MA
3 years ago
2 Additional Hiccups:
I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're settling. You don't mind your job right now, but you certainly don't want to be doing it forever, and it's plenty easy to get sucked into a career you don't really want by accepting your situation and thinking it's too hard/messy/whatever to change it. And besides what are our twenties for if not to move around and try things out and pursue degrees and scare ourselves?
I'm glad that you're finding satisfaction in your life. That is definitely important. But if you stay, I wonder where you'll be in five years? Not that any of us know where we'll be. So pray and ponder, but I know that you can do so much more and I really think that going back to school will provide a direction for that. Love always.
I think you may be right about settling, but I also think that NOT settling doesn't necessarily mean going back to school. I've actually started to view going back for a second career as a kind of settling.
I have a lot of ambitions, and I'm finding that fewer and fewer of them are career-related. Most of them are career-funded, which speaks to the necessity of a stable job. But I think we've grown up in a generation that feels like they need to have the dream job in order to be truly happy. I'm finding that's not necessarily true in my case. So I think that I will pursue my dreams while ALSO pursuing this mediocre job of mine--or another, if I can find one that is more exhilarating. So I will travel, I will WRITE (because after all, that is the thing I most want to do at this point in my life), I will volunteer, I will explore the many options of life. And if later I decide that school is what I want to do, then I will. After all--I still have a long time as a twenty something. :)
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