Always at Odds

Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Posted in Thoughts by Vanessa

Why are my thoughts continually diametrically opposed to one another? I would say that it’s because I am at a unique point in my life, being one year from thirty, and trying to decide what I want to do and who I want to be, but this is the same question I face on-and-off without it being relative to the year or anything else.

At this specific moment, my mind flits between ideas such as staying in New York and working hard where I am, which everyone seems to believe is best for my career. I consider moving back to Texas, specifically Austin. I consider checking out the west coast. I fancifully think about traveling through South America to really learn Spanish, possibly finding a graduate school in Argentina in which to enroll. Maybe it’s because of boredom. I don’t really know. I doubt, at moments like this, that I have the capacity or drive for actual lasting happiness, although I realize it is a common belief that happiness is not lasting – that there are only moments of it. Satisfaction, then. Contentment. I wonder if that’s where I am right now. I suppose it could be. So then, if so, perhaps it is not enough.

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with a director of a different department from mine. He travels frequently for work. I commented that it must get tiring. He responded that it didn’t really bother him because he loves his job. I think that must be a really fantastic feeling. Granted there are so many different types of people in the world, but I wonder why I don’t feel that same level of fulfillment and whether I possibly can. I wonder if I should have majored in something else, or should have become a programmer, or what to do, now, knowing that I haven’t been terrible ecstatic with anything I’ve done, minus working those relaxed, low-paid hours in the studio, perhaps.

I wonder why so many other people seem content working for years at a job which doesn’t make them happy and I quickly try to change my position. Once again, it brings me back to feeling that perhaps I am wired wrong for society, but I don’t know. Today, I don’t feel any deep depression. I don’t feel that fear of being terrifically out of place. I just wonder if there is something better out there. I guess that’s the trouble with me. My mother told me many years ago that nothing is ever enough for me. I think about that often – about how right she must’ve been.

Tags: decisions, life, Thoughts