I grew up very poor and as a child was always told to study and work hard in order to be successful and happy.  I was always a good/decent student.  I NEVER studied but got away with A’s and B’s.  I made it through high school, college, and graduate school with good grades and great scholarships (full scholarship for college and a big scholarship for grad school).  I took on the best fellowship and internship opportunities and made it my duty to stand out from the crowd.

After graduating, I landed a good job and I fell in love with it. I worked so hard and always made an effort to learn as much as possible. Surprisingly, this position had huge turnover.  Several employees before me lasted less than a year. About a year in to the job, I noticed my workload started to pile up. It got to the point where I was months behind on work and felt completely overworked.  My supervisors put a lot of pressure on me, and even though they knew that they needed to hire someone else, they stalled.  During that same time, another company reached out to me and asked me if I was interested in applying for a similar position to the one I already had.  I was interviewed and then hired and it felt great.

I started at the new job and realized that I made a HUGE mistake weeks months in.  I had several projects but was never given any direction or support. The organization is riddled with drama, corruption and was basically bankrupted. I regretted my decision to leave my first job. It was so bad that I went into a state of anxiety and depression.  About 6 months into this new job, I decided that I was going to change my career.  After several weeks of looking, I connected with an organization that did exactly what I was interested in doing, and got hired.

It doesn’t sound real that I was able to secure another job so quick, but I did!  Anyway, I’ve been at this job for a year now and it is really a dream job.  This is the type of company I pictured myself in when I was in high school! But now there’s a problem….I am miserable.  I’ve been trying to ignore my feelings of dissatisfaction for months now and its getting worse every day.  I feel unmotivated, bored and like I don’t fit in.  Every morning is a drag because I don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle typing and taking calls for an issue that I no longer care about.

I feel like there is so much more to life than a office job.  For so long, I was told that I would find happiness if I followed the rules: went to school and got a job.  Now I feel like a prisoner ready to escape and be independent, but it seems so unrealistic  and far fetched. I don’t feel like I have the skills to do independent work or the financial capacity to search for something else. Most of all, I am clueless about what I want to do next.

It’s a scary feeling because I am so much more well off than I was when I was younger.  For some reason I don’t feel comfortable in this lifestyle. Saying all of this makes me feel so selfish and I know that I am the problem, but I don’t know what the problem is or how to approach it.  Some guidance, advice or even brutal honesty about what my issue may be or how I should approach these feelings would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,