I figured out one of the reasons I have so many problems with this goal, and it’s that I can never know the source of my feelings of dissatisfaction.
When I started college, I hated the major I had (more or less randomly) chosen. I hated the subject matter, hated that I wasn’t any good at it, didn’t click with my fellow students. But I could never trust that my unhappiness would clear up if I switched. I had been crazy and depressed all my life, and I subscribed to the idea that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If I changed majors to something I thought I liked better, I’d lose time and money, and I’d have fewer reasonably lucrative career options once I got out—and I couldn’t be sure that I’d be any happier. So I never did switch. That one, I think, was the right decision.
I was miserable for the first three years of graduate school. I fantasized about getting in the car and driving across the country, back home, every day. But I could imagine myself with a new life, just as miserable, regretting the free-ride Ph.D. at a great school that I just threw away. So I slogged it out. I still have no idea if that was the right decision. I don’t know how I could know.
And now, certain things about my job are getting me down. And again, I can’t trust myself, because I believe that the dissatisfaction would just attach to whatever’s going on in my life. Can I really throw away this fairly low-stress job with great colleagues and great students?
I see myself as reckless and ballsy, but that’s at odds with how conservative I am about changing my life. At this point, my desire to shake things up is just an unproductive distraction, because I’m incapable of doing anything about it.
