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To be clear, I'm not suggesting everyone should have children. Plenty of people don't desire them, and lead fulfilling lives without them.
For me personally they changed my life in a very positive. At one point in life I would say I was in a similar position to you. I was married, had a good career, and owned my home. My life had been going pretty much the way I would have wanted it to, yet I felt unfulfilled. My wife and I had talked about kids, but never put a solid timeline on when we wanted them, we just had a vague notion of "someday". I was approaching my 30th birthday, and we came to the realization that there would never be some grand signal that it was time to move forward and start trying to have a family. We decided there was no time better than the present, and about a year later our first child was born.
I've felt my life has had a lot more purpose since we had our children.
Again, I'm not trying to say children are for everyone, but if it is something you and your spouse want, now might be the time to start thinking about it.
I've taken this into consideration lately, but children have never been in our cards. They just don't fit into our lifestyle. But who knows, maybe that changes in the next five years.
Not intending to sound flippant at all, but do you have hobbies?
I too am successful, love my wife dearly, have great kids, make a great income with the picket fence. But no satisfaction in the career. I'm good at it apparently, but it bores me to tears. Add to that I am an INTP I'm introverted and didn't have many friends. All friends seem shallow and only complain constantly (about their kids, their jobs, weather, politics, the person in the other car, prices, ...*sigh). I can't make my self care about them.
Soooo... My recommendation: Personally I have discovered many hobbies that I love. Forced myself into more "right brained" activities too. Such as playing board games, playing on the guitar, building scale models, reading comics books monthly, pastel painting, high end car audio and fabrication, computer gaming, wood working, and metal music. I rotate through them on whims.
Through those hobbies I have met many great people that have become "friends". The nice thing is we don't talk about the stupid things in life and only talk about the hobby topic. Increases my knowledge about a topic and get satisfaction by showing someone something I have learned they didn't before.
I think you need to immerse yourself in some hobbies and meet people with that shared interest. It will make a world of difference.
I don't think anyone really knows what they are doing. I had a plan, I reached the end of my plan. Made a new plan, but it is really just to continue what I am currently doing until retirement. Is that aimless? I don't know. Boring, maybe. I'm happy enough, content enough. I think society seems to suggest that we should always be trying to climb higher mountains, but I don't think there is anything wrong with deciding that your last mountain was high enough and it's okay just to sit there and enjoy the view.
Not intending to sound flippant at all, but do you have hobbies?
Yes! This is part of the "new" plan. We recently moved to a new area, one that is closer to stuff for us to do, and my intention is to get more involved in the community.
Yes! This is part of the "new" plan. We recently moved to a new area, one that is closer to stuff for us to do, and my intention is to get more involved in the community.
Boom there ya go. A perfect idea!
oh another thing I got involved with was disc golf. It's decent exercise and you can chat it up with random people. As a bonus my wife likes it too. Great opportunity to spend a few hours together playing 18 holes. It's a lot of fun and very inexpensive.
From the outside looking in, it could be perceived that I have my life together fairly well. Married, homeowner, college-educated, decent career. However, sometimes I feel utterly lost and aimless. This thought usually permeates after a moment of distress or maladroit, which in turn results in me thinking, "What the hell am I doing?"
While I'm happy with my relationship with my spouse, I feel lost in my social life outside of home. I find it difficult to formulate relationships, because I tend to want something meaningful and deep, whereas I see many relationships as relatively shallow but not necessarily meaningless. And while I'm happy with my career success and earnings, I feel lost at times about what I actually want to do and what I'm actually really good at. A lot of the time, it's about finding the right fit, or finding the right relationships.
I think that has a lot to do with my personality make-up. We were raised to be fairly humble and borderline meek. And while I've grown out of the meekness to some extent in adulthood, I don't do well with a lot of strong or aggressive personality types. When it comes to personal relationships, I generally avoid these types of people because I tend to associate them with confrontation. When it comes to work, these personality types make me question my choice to work at a place and whether I'm any good at my job. So then I end up wanting to leave and soul-search until I find a better fit.
Anyone else feel similarly at times, and what sorts of methods have worked for you to overcome?
I could have written this.
I've come to the conclusion after moving a far distance away from long, deep friendships and family that I don't want to waste time forcing shallow relationships either. I don't think that assessing the quality of relationships and whether you "mesh" with another is a bad thing; it leaves open more time for doing things that are satisfying and thus 'more worth' our time. I have seen more people force friendships in my older age than when I was younger, and even in my own friendships it is the ones that "felt" right that made sense and have lasted.
As far as work, two things- (1) Do you have a good HR department? If so, utilize it if you're dealing with aggressive or possibly hostile people. (2) If it's possible to explore your soul-searching through trying different hobbies that would tie into the wondered-about different work avenues, become good at that/those interests first before making an employment decision.
From the outside looking in, it could be perceived that I have my life together fairly well. Married, homeowner, college-educated, decent career. However, sometimes I feel utterly lost and aimless. This thought usually permeates after a moment of distress or maladroit, which in turn results in me thinking, "What the hell am I doing?"
While I'm happy with my relationship with my spouse, I feel lost in my social life outside of home. I find it difficult to formulate relationships, because I tend to want something meaningful and deep, whereas I see many relationships as relatively shallow but not necessarily meaningless. And while I'm happy with my career success and earnings, I feel lost at times about what I actually want to do and what I'm actually really good at. A lot of the time, it's about finding the right fit, or finding the right relationships.
I think that has a lot to do with my personality make-up. We were raised to be fairly humble and borderline meek. And while I've grown out of the meekness to some extent in adulthood, I don't do well with a lot of strong or aggressive personality types. When it comes to personal relationships, I generally avoid these types of people because I tend to associate them with confrontation. When it comes to work, these personality types make me question my choice to work at a place and whether I'm any good at my job. So then I end up wanting to leave and soul-search until I find a better fit.
Anyone else feel similarly at times, and what sorts of methods have worked for you to overcome?
I echo these exact same struggles. I'm not meek, but I was in the past, as my Dad was. Thats what I saw growing up. Like you, I also want deep relationships and have met nobody in my current city who shares that view. They all seem shallow af.
I also stay away from combative or aggressive personality types. I detest arrogance and I have to deal with that a lot as well. I also relate to impostor syndrome, which is what you're describing in your job. I wish I had advice that worked. I just deal with all of these same issues. We could be twins.
I've come to the conclusion after moving a far distance away from long, deep friendships and family that I don't want to waste time forcing shallow relationships either. I don't think that assessing the quality of relationships and whether you "mesh" with another is a bad thing; it leaves open more time for doing things that are satisfying and thus 'more worth' our time. I have seen more people force friendships in my older age than when I was younger, and even in my own friendships it is the ones that "felt" right that made sense and have lasted.
As far as work, two things- (1) Do you have a good HR department? If so, utilize it if you're dealing with aggressive or possibly hostile people. (2) If it's possible to explore your soul-searching through trying different hobbies that would tie into the wondered-about different work avenues, become good at that/those interests first before making an employment decision.
Good advice. I've gone to my bosses about one difficult person in particular just to cover my a*s more than anything. She constantly tries to make me look bad and I have to stand up for myself. That didn't come naturally. I had to learn it. Still, I won't even address her directly, so I have some more work to do on that.
Not intending to sound flippant at all, but do you have hobbies?
I too am successful, love my wife dearly, have great kids, make a great income with the picket fence. But no satisfaction in the career. I'm good at it apparently, but it bores me to tears. Add to that I am an INTP I'm introverted and didn't have many friends. All friends seem shallow and only complain constantly (about their kids, their jobs, weather, politics, the person in the other car, prices, ...*sigh). I can't make my self care about them.
Soooo... My recommendation: Personally I have discovered many hobbies that I love. Forced myself into more "right brained" activities too. Such as playing board games, playing on the guitar, building scale models, reading comics books monthly, pastel painting, high end car audio and fabrication, computer gaming, wood working, and metal music. I rotate through them on whims.
Through those hobbies I have met many great people that have become "friends". The nice thing is we don't talk about the stupid things in life and only talk about the hobby topic. Increases my knowledge about a topic and get satisfaction by showing someone something I have learned they didn't before.
I think you need to immerse yourself in some hobbies and meet people with that shared interest. It will make a world of difference.
Amazing the similarities on this thread. Makes me feel less alone, so thank you. I wish I had a wife and kids. I also am bored in my career, yet successful. I'm an ISTJ, so I totally get it. I bought online guitar lessons, but have yet to start them. I've tried lessons on 2 occasions and thought I'd never learn. Funny how patience with such things diminishes as we age, at least for me.
I don't think anyone really knows what they are doing. I had a plan, I reached the end of my plan. Made a new plan, but it is really just to continue what I am currently doing until retirement. Is that aimless? I don't know. Boring, maybe. I'm happy enough, content enough. I think society seems to suggest that we should always be trying to climb higher mountains, but I don't think there is anything wrong with deciding that your last mountain was high enough and it's okay just to sit there and enjoy the view.
I love this, it's good advice.
I read something just last night that theorizes that most modern people (Americans especially) operate within the idea of happiness and satisfaction as commodities, which actually makes us much less satisfied (for many reasons).
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