Ramblings

More to clear my mind than as an actual post to be read..

I was thinking back on the past couple of years here in Calgary and I realized I've been happier and more relaxed lately than before. I think with this pregnancy at least there is some immediate sense of purpose and direction - There will be a baby and I will need to care for it a lot in the next couple of years. Neat and defined - I like it.

This sense of purpose wasn't there before and hence all the unhappiness, doubt, guilt and endless self-questioning. Am I doing the right thing? What is the right thing? How come I don't know what it is I should be doing? Is this why I was educated? What do I really want to be doing for the rest of my life? Could a better person somehow use these circumstances better and have built a better career? Am I really sad because I feel I am in a dead end career? Or am I sad because I feel I should be sad about the non-career? Am I sad because I am scared that I might actually become complacent and enjoy the non-career and non-stress? Would I really feel happier elsewhere or am I just finding a convenient excuse? Wouldn't the added stress of an actual career make me more unhappy?

Somehow all this is tied up to my 'career' and what I feel I should be doing for the rest of my life. The problem is that I've no idea what I want to be doing and never did. Growing up, this scared me sometimes but I figured things would become clearer as I got older. I will be turning 30 later this year but am no clearer than I was when 13.

But staying at home and cooking day in and day out does not quite interest me either. I am fine with doing that for a couple of years but not beyond that if I can help it! So what then? Work in a dead end job like scanning groceries at Superstore? Sure...but where is the intellectual challenge? It would be so BORING! Okay, so I need intellectual challenge - I could sit and home and solve puzzles and do the Superstore thing part time, right?...But no, what about my education? What about my peers? Shouldn't I be trying to compete with them and make myself known in my field? Or something?And there is all the comparison with them- Here is where I SHOULD be just as they are and here is where I am and oh my god, look at the gap - I am falling short so much! Nevermind they live in a different city, have different circumstances and more importantly WANT different things. But.. but.. what do I want? If I don't know what I want, is it wrong to want what everyone else seems to want?

And so continues the endless cycle of self doubt and depression. Unless its broken temporarily by some external circumstance like a pregnancy. Another way to break it might be to figure out what I want - but how does one begin to do that?

A friend once told me a few years ago that most people start working not because they want to but because of imitating others who are working and later they're too entrenched in the system to stop. Of course we do need to work for our food, shelter, etc. but there is more to it than that. I scoffed at him then because I was still young and idealistic. Now I wonder if he had a point..