Most suffering with work comes from people overly identified with the stories and narratives they’ve cooked up about what a good, successful, or even “normal” person is supposed to be doing with their adult life.

Most people’s desires come into conflict with these stories by the late twenties.

Then there is a choice

1. Ignore the feeling: my path until I was 32

side effects include: drinking, cynicism, health challenges

2. Face it: when I quit my job

Side effects include: triggering old friends with new questions you are asking, self doubt, uncertainty, excitement that’s hard to share

Neither path is ideal but almost everyone is happier eventually on path 2

Why?

Because it forces you to rewrite your narrative. It helps you see that your story isn’t fixed and you can rewrite it again. You’ll be able to notice the “stuckness” much earlier next time it emerges (it’s inevitable in life)

Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a 'normal' person.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.