Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Too invested in high pressure career…?

42 replies

Purplelemon7 · 03/09/2021 17:47

Does anyone who is in a high pressure career feel a bit concerned about how invested they are in it? I’ve been really career focused over the last ten years since I started I’m my 20s and the time has just flown by. It’s satisfying in the sense that it’s challenging, I have worked with great people, travelled and it pays really well and affords me the lifestyle I want, however having taken a break from it (for maternity leave) I’ve realised how little it matters in the grand scheme of things. Not that I want to be a SAHM and I don’t have any desire to re-train into something else. I guess Im realising having had a bit of distance from work that it doesn’t really matter in the end. Some day I will retire and all the knowledge and experience I have accumulated won’t matter and the people I spend most of my time with won’t be there and these thoughts make me feel demotivated. It’s a bit depressing to think it’s just a way to pass the time and be free of financial worries. I probably need to shift my mindset or something? Any advice?

OP posts:

PegasusReturns · 04/09/2021 13:31

I know it’s a bit of a cliche on these threads but could you have PND?

Whilst your comments are related to work, it sounds more like you’re suffering some sort of existential dread: in the scheme of things (whatever that is) nothing we do is really important or has real longevity. We are just a blip in time.

Whilst many of the people you work with now won’t be there when you retire, people will continue to come into and move out of your life constantly through a variety of ways. That’s great! Some you’ll stay in touch with, some you won’t. Some you’ll learn from, some you’ll teach. You might retain a couple of life long friends or make a meaningful difference to someone if you’re lucky.

Very few of us will change the world but that doesn’t mean life is pointless. We can have impact in myriad ways.

PegasusReturns · 04/09/2021 13:33

A family member sold their very successful business in late thirties and then 3 years later started up again as they couldn’t cope with no one calling them needing solutions , brainstorming etc

I did this. Sold a business. I could retire and thought I would, but I needed the challenge (and if I’m honest the status).

Original poster

Purplelemon7 · 04/09/2021 14:03

I don’t think it’s PND. Had a pretty happy maternity leave and was looking forward to returning to work. Probably have too much time on my hands at the moment to ruminate as work has been very slow since I returned. It’s not so much that I expect to make a massive impact on the world as it is that I wish there were things in life that weren’t transient. I think I was so busy with life I didn’t stop to think and assumed everything I had would last forever in terms of relationships whether that was school friends, work friends, parents, extended family etc but I’ve realised that time and circumstances mean that those things don’t last and that makes me sad.

OP posts:

annabelindajane · 04/09/2021 14:26

Do have a look at Erica Komisars book - 30 years a psychoanalyst

Hardbackwriter · 04/09/2021 14:32

I had this too - I was an academic and mat leave was the first time I'd really been out of that bubble since I started my PhD at 22 (most of my friends were academics in similar fields) and it really shook me to realise how little the debates and conflicts and 'big names' in my tiny, non-applied (so it wasn't like our research was aiming to cure cancer or anything) actually mattered. It really had felt like the be-all and end-all and I found I never got that feeling back, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. It wasn't the sole reason that I left academia and started a new job when DS1 was 18 months but it was certainly one of them.

Original poster

Purplelemon7 · 04/09/2021 15:06

@annabelindajane is that because it would convince me to take a career break/become a SAHM? Whilst I enjoyed Mat leave I know I’m not cut out for not having a life outside the children. Luckily I only work 4 days a week from home and work is very slow at the moment so have a great work life balance.

@Hardbackwriter I’ve also been in the same job and industry for over a decade since my early 20s. I’m glad I have this perspective that it doesn’t really matter but at the same time I need to figure out what does. Is it just my family?

OP posts:

Spyro1234 · 04/09/2021 15:11

I think it's really important to remember that we will die one day. I was the same, but now I can see how other things are just as or even more important. I won't dedicate myself like that anymore! I was sleepwalking through the years

Original poster

Purplelemon7 · 04/09/2021 15:19

@Spyro1234 do you mind sharing what those things are?

OP posts:

TorringtonDean · 04/09/2021 15:51

Everything is transitory in the end. Kids will grow up, parents will die, marriages can end. Family is no less certain to last than work. It’s making the most of it while you are here that matters. How you do that is up to you but it’s not much fun being poor - not for you or your kids either.

ithinkilikeit · 04/09/2021 15:55

@annabelindajane maybe you were sour on earth just to procreate. I was not. What a weird mindset.

Also OP as PP have said even family is transitory, children will move out, marriages may end, family members will die. That is why finding hobbies and interest I can enjoy alone also help me. I don’t think work is any more transitory than family. Life is transitory. Today we are alive. In a century we all will not be.

BlueFairiesinthesky · 04/09/2021 15:58

I think you need to look inside yourself and find out what you really need and want. What will nourish your soul?

We need to quieten the mind and really get to know ourselves to do this. We are so shaped by external forces, our leaders/ colleagues... that we can lose sense of who we really are.

We look for external validation, more success at work/ promotions/ money/ material possessions and experiences... but actually a lot of the answers lie within us.

I think it’s really normal to go through this in your 30s, especially once you’ve had children. I know I did. Up until then I was swept up in the professional world, not really controlling my own destiny.

I’m making a career change after 15 years doing something I was really good at. I don’t know if it will work out, but I feel more alive and that it is more aligned to my true self and values. It’s a bit of a pay cut, but if I succeed the increased salary will soon come, so I’m not too worried about that.

bettyboodecia · 04/09/2021 17:20

"with the benefit of some distance I’ve come to realise how little it matters in the end. Would love to hear from some older people about what really matters towards the end…"

My parents are mid 70s. Dad's a successful academic, still writing and lecturing with lots of "work" friends of many decades standing. Mum was a teacher, now retired, but still friends with former colleagues and interested in education. So I don't see their careers as transitory or meaningless now, and don't believe that will change "towards the end", whenever that is.

Hardbackwriter · 04/09/2021 18:27

I'm not offering this up as a universal answer but for me I think the reason I've been much happier since having children is the realisation that I'm ok - indeed, very happy - doing ok at a few things but not having one big purpose in life. I don't have a 'big job' but do a medium one where I get a decent four days a week, I think I'm a 'good enough' mum, I don't have a big passion hobby that I'm wonderful at but I run, I write a bit, I go to a book club, etc. I was just starting to volunteer but Covid stymied that and then I had another baby which made it harder, but I'm hoping to start again soon - but it's not going to be my life's work, realistically I just have a few hours here and there. As someone who had achieved very highly academically I had come to believe that I could be and so should be really 'special' and doing something 'big', but it turns out I'm quite average and that's not just ok but actually rather nice. I'm not devoid of career ambition - I'm aiming for promotion in the next couple of years - but nor is it my everything. I think it's fine to cherish the little things and that a life doesn't have to have a grand purpose to have its own sort of meaning.

Jangle33 · 04/09/2021 18:54

Hmmm, I think I’d rather have had a highly paid fulfilling career than working in a dead end minimum wage job. I think the illustrious middle ground is an achievable utopia - though it is much easier to set your own timetable/hours etc if you are senior, and you hopefully get fulfilment from your job and money helps make life so much easier…

Marni83 · 04/09/2021 19:02

You say work is very slow at the moment

Why is that?

BlueFairiesinthesky · 04/09/2021 19:09

OP, I would recommend reading works by Alain de Botton.... he writes about existentialism, which seems to be what you’re experiencing.

Givemethatknife · 04/09/2021 19:18

@Purplelemon7

“ Having a high flying career often makes you feel far more important in life’s great scheme than you are . You need that mindset to motivate you”

Exactly this and now with the benefit of some distance I’ve come to realise how little it matters in the end. Would love to hear from some older people about what really matters towards the end…

I think this is absolutely true, and you are realising it quite young which is great. I think what almost anyone would say matters most at the end of their lives is their relationships and having had a sense of purpose (and enough time and energy to have fun.)

I think a good career can be a really great part of the mix, it can give purpose, it’s an enjoyable way to spend your days and it can buy you some rich experiences. So I wouldn’t Chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Just make sure your career doesn’t stop you having good relationships and getting enough downtime and general life experience. If it’s not the sort of job that gives deeper meaning, you can always use your skills to become the trustee of a charity when your kids are older, or pivot your career.

Flip

1 2