I'm 34 and I've been in a permanent job for 10 years. Good salary, apartment paid off, everything I need. But honestly, between Teams meetings, deadlines and the commute-work-sleep cycle, I wonder if this is actually my life or just a routine. People around me are making completely different choices and it's messing with my head.
Don't think you have to choose between stability and a real life - that's a false dichotomy. The thing is, 10 years in the same place without ever asking yourself if that's what you want, yeah, that's pretty hollow. But that doesn't mean you have to blow it all up - you could figure out what's actually missing for you: is it money that's holding you back, or is it just that your job drains your energy without giving you anything in return? Once you know that, you can look for adjustments, switch jobs, cut your hours, start something on the side that you're passionate about. People who make different choices, it's not that they found some magic formula - it's just that they asked the question and then acted on it.
Personally, I've noticed it's mostly when you're doing exactly the same thing every day without ever changing that it becomes suffocating - even with a good salary and security. The thing is, you can keep your stability AND ask yourself what actually makes you happy outside of that.
Your colleagues making different choices - it's not necessarily that they're right and you're wrong, but they show you there are other ways to structure a life. Are you looking to completely change your life or more to add things that really drive you - projects, people, activities - while you keep your stable base?
Most people who make a radical life change realize after a few months that it wasn't just the job suffocating them, but the complete lack of control over their daily life. Before you throw it all away, try to take back some concrete things first - cut your hours if you can, take real time off without thinking about emails, find a real hobby that absorbs you - and see if that shifts how you feel or if you really sense you need to move on.
The thing nobody mentions is that you can quit everything tomorrow and end up with exactly the same emptiness, just without the paycheck to distract you from it - the real question isn't "should I leave" but "what would I do instead that would actually make me feel like I'm living," and that's not something you solve by changing jobs, it's more about looking at what's missing in your life right now.
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