Dear Marcus S:

Welcome back.

You wrote: “I just moved out of my parents’ house. I wonder if that large life change has triggered these feelings about my job”-

You referred to moving out of your parents’ house as a “large life change”.  A couple of years ago you left your parents’ house, your home country, I understand. You were looking forward to return home, at that time.

How has life been at home since your return from the internship, I wonder, and why is it that you left your parents’ home?

anita

Hi there Marcus,

i think i know why you are having these problems and how you solve them, i recommend you listen to an audio called “freedom from anxiety” by Nicola bird. You should decide what makes you happy in your life and try to stop looking at like from an outside in perspective but instead look at life from an inside out perspective i will give you an example: rather than saying “my job makes me stressed” try to understand that it is not the job that is stressing you out it is your thoughts. At first this may think you understand this but i promise you once you understand this simple fact your whole life will change. I wish someone had told me this a few years ago. We are mortal beings so lets live our lives the way we want to, money is insignificant and so is your job. We allow humanly constructed concepts to shape who we are as human beings and we build attachments to things we simply don’t need to. This is your chance to really turn your life around, look at this as a stepping stone, i say f**ck it and take a risk! You are not happy at the moment and you know what is causing you to be unhappy so change it, anxiety is not real, its just a few thoughts that you decide to act on. Once you realise that your thoughts don’t matter so much you stop taking life so seriously and that my friend is the key to an anxiety free life. I want to remind you that you will always be okay as long as you are alive, say you lost everything- your job, money, flat and all of your possessions, you would find a job and maybe go on benefits for a while then you would save up some money and buy a flat. You will not always feel like this, you can’t control anything in this world, let it go, let it leave, let it happen. Nothing in this world belonged or was promised to you anyway. (rupi kaur)If you were looking for a sign this is it. Take a leap, if you want something to change you have to make it change.

Hi there Marcus,

My name is also Marcus S, what a coincidence, or seeming more than just a coincidence since I am exactly working on what you are facing.

I understand your pain. The fear that you can never trust whether what you want is truly what you want, you are sick of the ‘trial and error’ phase where you have wasted far too much time, resources and effort only to find a dead end at the end of the tunnel. All these failings, along with your brother’s dreamlike situation of pursuing your dream, makes you fear that you are lagging behind your brother. It is a very scary and depressing feeling. I get it. I’ve been there. For me, I realized that I was lost 2 months prior to graduation, all of these happening while my younger sister gave up her 5k/month modelling career to pursue a degree in dentistry, it seemed painful that a supposed role model like me in her life was actually in regression relative to her, a younger sibling.

The good thing I noticed though, is that you feel strongly about things you do in life, looking at how you quit a football camp because you didn’t see yourself going through it without destroying yourself internally. This will be your key to finding your true career path, as ironic as it might seem to be a obstacle in your life. Use it wisely.

Ultimately, what matters is what you think of yourself. You talk about major decisions feeling like ‘life and death’, I’d like to offer a counterpoint where what if you had a solution to put as much as odds in your favor that your next major decision is going to make you LIVE (as opposed to dying), would you take it? Only you can answer that for yourself.

But if you are ready to take that step, I’d suggest that you start using your gutfeeling to help you find your path as it seems to be relatively strong… Only this time, rather than experiencing first hand, map out your possible interests and the possible opportunities available to you. I want you to imagine you, working in those scenarios, do you see yourself staying in there for long?

What are the conditions like? Who are you interacting with? Is it low-communication job? What hours are you working? What are you exactly doing in your job? What do you not like about it?

These are all but a few questions that you need to start asking yourself about what you want to do in the future, finding a career path that is authentic to you, that liberates you, requires holistic deliberation on your part rather than the usual ‘follow your passion and everything will be okay’ mantra parroted in the web (not here, I acknowledge that this is a great site and an exception).

If you are interested in exploring this further, I have actually written a detailed guide of how to ensure that the next step that you take in your career search will be the one that is most authentic and well-informed for yourself. You can find the link here: https://page.co/0jpK

Hope this helps, if you have any further struggles, concerns or questions to share, feel free to reply here. I will be here.

Marcus S