Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lifechanges

After a break-up and social ostracization, what should my next steps be?

Anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:49:55 -0800

Break-ups, moving, planning out my future, and everything in between. What do I do now? I am finding myself in a position of turmoil for a large number of reasons, and I'm trying to figure out what next to do with my life, and how to sort through all of my options.

I'm currently in a dead-end job. It's easy, the pay is low but liveable, it's not what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don't know what I want to do with my life, actually--my attempts at attending school have all failed and I'm feeling pretty directionless. The only think I consider seriously is joining the military but I'm not even ready for that yet. There's issue #1.

Issue #2 is tangentially related to the job. After the break-up of my long-term relationship almost two months ago I've experienced almost total ostracization from all of my friends in the immediate area. Solution is to make new groups of friends, right? But even in the best frame of mind I'm pretty terrible at producing friendships out of thin air, and right now my job's hours don't leave a lot of extra time for socialization and many nights I feel too demoralized about my situation to put a lot of energy into it. All I want to do is spend my time on a hobby of mine that brings me a lot of joy and relief, but unfortunately has a very small community around it that also has gravitated towards the ex.

So due to feel lost career-wise and outcast socially, I feel like there's no future in my current location. I have been thinking about re-establishing myself in a different city where I have other friend groups who would be more amenable to hanging out with me and other communities of people interested in my hobby--right now thinking somewhere in Florida, DC, or Philly. Maybe then getting over the break-up would be easier and I wouldn't feel so crazy and cooped-up right now. And though my background is almost entirely dead-end service jobs, it seems like those are always available anywhere and my references are all pretty stellar so I'm not terribly worried about my job prospects.

However, I love the city I'm currently in, and though my job is dead-end I don't mind the work or co-workers, and really, really hate moving--I moved a lot when I was a kid so it means a lot to me to live in a place that feels like home. Maybe I should take this as a challenge to myself to try to make new friends and develop my ability to socialize. I'm also worried about the change in cost-of-living (my current city has a very low COL), and my ability to support myself given that dead-end service jobs don't tend to pay much. I also don't have a lot of financial resources, so there is not a lot of room for error and city-hopping here.

My lease is up in a couple of weeks, and I feel pressured to decide what to do now--if I decide to stay where I am, I currently have a pretty sweet living situation and wouldn't want to leave.

How should I guide myself? How should I figure out what to do? What should my main steps be? I am feeling overwhelmed with options and could use some guidance.

Changing careers without going back to school?

kaudio — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:51:00 -0800

CareerFilter: Any advice on undertaking a career change when going back to school is not an option? A bit of background: I'm 29 years old and currently work as an Audio Assistant (A2) and Audio Operator in live television. Freelance pays well, but the hours are completely unpredictable and there's little-to-no possibility of getting a full-time position in the near future, since most of the major broadcasters in Canada have recently gone through major layoffs. At this point in my life, I need some stability in my career and a steady paycheque, neither of which are provided by my current vocation. I'd also like to move in a direction which could lead to full time work, since I may want to start a family in the next few years and, in Ontario, you must work full time for a continuous year to qualify for Employment Insurance maternity leave benefits.

I've worked in the technical side of television since I left high school (without a diploma). I went to University of Toronto (Spanish and Latin American Studies) for two years as a mature student, but I could not afford to continue my studies because my availability for work was heavily impacted by my class schedule. (I still carry a fairly large amount of debt from that attempt to educate myself.) I feel that I would have enjoyed studying something more vocational, rather than cultural studies theory; however, at the time, I was still feeling pressure from my family to get a university degree.

I don't know what sort of career I'm looking for... I'm technically savvy, but I'm not really an expert in anything other than TV-specific audio. I'm very analytical, a competent and creative problem-solver, and I often notice things and make connections that other people don't. I'll be checking out some of the books found this mefi thread to try and figure out what path I should take, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that anyone will want to hire me without a proper education. It's starting to keep me up at night.

Do I have to go back to school (read: further into debt) to make a career change? Are there any resources (Toronto/Ontario/Canada) that can help me through the transition? Any advice from the hive mind is welcome.

I'm changing, she's not. How to talk about it?

jeanmari — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:06:25 -0800

Friendfilter: I’m going through some life changes. One of my friends is behaving a little strangely. Almost seems angry at me because of how my life is changing. How do I address this with her? Here’s the backstory: I’m 39, pregnant and due in January. My pregnancy has been a bit complicated and I’ve been struggling with my health. I get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep. Add to this a contract job with long hours and little flexibility, an old dog with medical problems, and a house that is two years into a nine year renovation…garden variety overwhelm. But nothing requiring drama.

Within the last two years, I’ve struck up a friendship with a new gal pal. Lately, this pal has been really pushing for more time and attention. She is unmarried with no kids and a successful therapy practice. She’s also experiencing some tough times. An ex-work colleague committed suicide a few months ago and she was asked to come in and work with her old team on the issue. Her dad underwent hip replacement surgery. Her cat is slowly aging and requires a lot of care.

I wish I could be there more for her like I was before pregnancy, but I can’t be right now. I think she is having trouble adjusting to the fact that my life is changing. I can’t stay up past 8 p.m. for marathon phone conversations. I can’t take care of her cat while she is away because it is making messes all over the place and, being pregnant, I’m not allowed to handle that stuff right now. I can’t help her hang trim in her house. From various voice mails and emails, I gather that she is feeling hurt by my limited accessibility. She has told me that she feels needy and fragile right now. Her latest email seemed a little angry even.

I don’t think I’m being prima donna pregnant chick…heck, I was lugging power tools around up until 4 weeks ago and using a router to weatherstrip windows. I'm not asking for people to come over and do things for me. I’m conscious of not only talking about pregnancy, babies and kids. I have other interests. I don’t want to become “it’s all about my life and kid, so get on board or get lost.” I’m just damn tired.

I think I need to address this with her or I’m going to begin to feel put upon and start to avoid her. Which will be awkward because we share other friends and I will see her frequently. I just don’t know how to open up this subject with her in a neutral way.

Epiphanies

wtfwjd? — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:25:07 -0800

I recently had a major epiphany. The kind that has resulted in a rather radical shift in how I live and the choices I make each day: "You don't own the stuff-- the stuff owns you." Sure, you might think it facile or cliche, but since this new framework suddenly, deeply and firmly established itself in my noggin, I have stopped buying stuff all the time (like I used to) and I have been relentlessly getting rid of all the crap I had accumulated over 15 years. My question is what major epiphany have you had most recently and how has it changed your life?

Academic Career - Yea or Nay?

introcosm — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:12:17 -0800

Is it a good idea to pursue an academic career? ...I know that no one can actually answer this question in a general sense, but I could really use others' perspectives.

In six months I'll have a psychology BA, which is pretty useless on its own. I'm into cognitive science and neuroscience and don't think I'm cut out for clinical work. All my non-school-related skills are excessively common and unlikely to get me hired. I've always assumed I'd just go straight to grad school, get an experimentally oriented PhD, and be a professor/researcher...but lately I've been having serious second thoughts.

I'm worried about these things (in descending order of urgency):
-Specialization and time commitments - having to devote all my time to researching a narrow topic plus doing a bunch of busywork, and being forced to sacrifice my other interests (both intellectual and personal).
-My tendency to take academic competition/failure way too personally, coupled with my horrible time management skills. These have already caused me a lot of suffering, and my efforts to change have so far been unsuccessful.
-Feeling like a self-indulgent escapist for retreating into the ivory tower when the world is in such horrible shape. (Related problem: my anti-corporate sentiments restrict my ability to fall back on private-sector jobs...)
-The job market in higher education: it's already bad, and could totally collapse when/if the US economy does. I have ~$15k of student loan debt, and although I'm not hung up on income, I don't want to starve...or, less melodramatically, scrape by for decades as an adjunct professor or have to relocate to somewhere I hate.
-Dealing with shmooze-ey prestige hierarchies, self-congratulatory elitism, etc.

I'd love to hear from people who have considered similar careers and/or have had to confront any of these worries in their own lives (since I know that some of 'em pop up in all sorts of jobs). What was your situation like? How did you decide to deal with it? Where have you ended up? Are you happy?