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> Maybe therapy could help.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

You’re beginning that existential question of what matters to you and what you want to spend your time doing. As soon as you do that, uncertainty will creep into far more than just your work.

You chased the golden dream, now you “have it” and are near the top given your nice high salary. You’re not at the absolute tippy top, but you’re closer to the summit than at the base of the mountain.

Congrats, your Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is mostly met and now you’re getting mildly philosophical about your life and work.

It sounds like you’re in a state where you’ve learned to grind. It paid off, now you’re trying to keep up the pace by continuing learning to eek out that last bit of performance from your engine as you speed along.

I was there too. Voracious learning felt like I was building, finding my niche, but I was bored with what I did at work.

The solution is to go to therapy and discuss this problem directly with them. Explain how what you have put all this time into is now boring you, you feel the need to change, but are unsure how to. You want to stay motivated.

Get ready for a big change. You’re about to uncover topics like burn out, depression, expectations for life, building meaningful and fulfilling relationships… this is the meaning of life stuff.

Possibly, you’re putting too much weight of importance on your job. You may be letting it define you.

You’ll need to process all this and more. It’s going to take time. I suggest therapy so you don’t end up in the deep pot holes I did before I decided to eventually start talking to someone about the uncertainties in my life and how I handle them.

Good luck, this is a big topic you’ve just opened up for yourself.



>Possibly, you’re putting too much weight of importance on your job. You may be letting it define you.

Exactly.

I would caution in response to the original question that the answer might be that you shouldn't relearn to care about your job, and maybe just continue to treat it like a job.

OP if you're with Kaiser then you can self-refer to their psychiatric care unit and they'll give you 7 sessions with a councilor. From there you can decide what you want to do. There's a round of testing for ADHD, depression and anxiety. I'm going through this myself now.


I want to second this. Therapy is a great way to learn how to navigate personal change.

There is no shame in this. Think of it as hiring a personal trainer. Like everything else, self-improvement is a skill. :)


how patronizing

you'll get out of your rut, OP. it's normal to not like your job.


OP asked a direct question. It is not patronizing to answer that question from experience.




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