Is this all there is to my career? It's just work?!?

You know, there are many times in my life when I’ve stopped to ask, “what the heck am I doing with my life?”

Now, as a happily married father of four (and I really mean that in the sense that I know that marriage is NOT what you see in the movies, it’s a lot of f’ing hard work), I don’t question my role in a human sense. I don't sit around asking questions or making statements such as:

“Why do I exist?"
"Is there a God?"
"The world is a scary place! Why would I bring children into it?"
"I could never love any one person for my whole life.”

What do I mean when I ask “what the heck am I doing with my life?” I mean it in the sense that I have little, or no, true career/professional direction. I’m 40 years old, have spent nearly seventeen years in the “career” workforce – fifteen in the same field – and have learned that I don’t necessarily like what I do.

Thing is, I'm not passionate about anything that I’ve done; publishing, foodservice management, executive assistant, etc. What I want to do is, um, err, uhhh – crap, I don’t know! I realize that life's greatest satisfaction can't come from a job. It's the tangible, important things that matter - my relationship with my wife, my relationship as a father to my kids. But aren't I allowed to enjoy my work?

It’s not as if I’m one of those people that hate his job. I work with reasonable people making a fairly reasonable wage. Its just that I find myself spending time thinking, “is this all there is for me in my work life?”

I realize the overwhelming majority of people never reach a point where their work is enjoyably satisfying. It wouldn’t be called work otherwise. And if you wanted to do it anyway, why would you be paid to do it?

All of this takes me back to the slow-to-accept belief that I won’t be happy at my job for as long as I need money. How utterly disappointing. Since the average American spends more time at work than many of our Western society counterparts, I would hope that I could work doing something that I enjoyed – not just for money.

But that seems to be lost in the reality of life. So, as I spend my days helping other people accomplish what they want, and earning retirement income for the owners of the company I work for, I also spend quite a bit of time hoping, praying and attempting to find out what I really want to do with my life.

Where to from here? Hmm.