I feel like I’ve been struggling to figure out what to do with myself for the rest of my life for as long as I’ve existed. I’ve always felt limited by the idea of having to specialization of some sort for the rest of my life. I am absolutely the epitome of jack of all trades, master of none and as a result I’ve ended up in a job I don’t feel very excited about doing. I envy people that have something that they love so much that doing that one thing for the rest of their life is fulfilling. But I’ve come to realize that I only feel bad about not having that because it doesn’t allow me to fit into the world in a way that is profitable for others.

I always felt legitimately guilty for this, like there’s a uselessness to me because I can’t just say I do this one marketable thing. It made finding a job out of school hard, I stayed in retail for a year and a half while relentlessly applying to all sorts of jobs without hear much back at all. Now I have a job in HR. It’s not inherently bad, the people I work with are nice, I get paid decently, and my benefits and work flexibility are nice. Except I still feel this constant sadness when I realize how nice it is outside and I can’t go and enjoy it. Or how most of my life is going to be spent staring at a clock hoping time goes by faster so I can get to the short periods of time spent outside of work. How I won’t get to travel on my own terms or invest in creative endeavors I enjoy.

I think it’s easy to just feel like it’s just me complaining about doing work (which yeah, it sort of is) but I do think it’s a bit more than that. I have only realized through now working a full time corporate job that capitalism is inherently inhuman. It feels completely conflicting with human nature, yet it’s just how life is. A big part of my job is communicating company policy and helping people with their health insurance, and I just constantly think, why is this so complicated? Why did people need to make these things as complicated as they are and have so many hoops to jump through, just to get health insurance from your own employer? What weird ass human devised all these weird rules that everyone now has to abide by?

Unfortunately, I think I would feel this way at almost any job. Nothing feels right for me, but I realize that isn’t my fault now and I’m not just lazy. I love succeeding at things, I love learning, and I love being able to see progress I’ve made. I also love working hard and seeing where that can get me. But nothing about the way that jobs have functioned in my life has fulfilled those basic things consistently for me because it feels like it is all on the basis of how I will be profitable. I had this issue with college too, where I loved what I was doing and loved improving, but constantly had to battle the “What job are you gonna get with that degree?” type of questions. I knew it wasn’t something I could make money on, but I loved it. It's frustrating and depressing that everything in life gets reduced to that.

I can usually keep myself going with the fulfilling little things outside of work, like going home and knitting, playing video games, talking with friends, and going out to do fun stuff. But whenever I think too much about how most of my week is spent yearning for those times it makes me depressed.

Anyways, I had a rough day at work today if you couldn’t tell.

8/21/2024