You make $65,000 (USD 🤢) in a dead end career doing nothing but showing up sometimes. Guaranteed employment without change in intensity or salary until retirement in 15 years at age 62. You receive 3 weeks paid vacation, reasonably priced medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401k matched at 2.5%, and virtually unlimited sick days as long as you don’t call out too often (>3x month). You are given 6 college credits per semester to use at the local university. You’re currently working on a PhD.
You live comfortably and have 1 year’s salary saved. Zero dependents.
Do you ride it out, or do you seek a career change before it’s too late.
I know, infinite unknown variables, but what would you do regardless?
Are you happy?
Regardless of the answer, I’d follow this up with “Are you unhappy?” If you’re happy-ish or at least not unhappy, then the peace of mind that comes with job security is a big motivator.
You can always seek happier happiness outside of work so long as the work itself doesn’t promptly steal it all when you go in the next day.
It’s an optimization problem.
There are a lot of factors that could go into what you or I end up calling happiness. We probably see things differently after all. Job (life) security, being wild and free, location, family, friends, money… the list goes on. Optimize for what makes you happy.
I’m a contradiction. I’m no more unhappy than I am happy. Pay isn’t the best, but the certainty and creature comforts make it tolerable.
My take - based on everything you are saying in this thread, it sounds like you aren’t happy, but that you are balancing that unhappiness with potential unhappiness you are worried about facing if you were to try for another job.
You talk about pay and creature comforts - but you seem to be avoiding talking about meaning. What is your purpose in life? Because if this job facilitates that purpose, then by all means, keep it. But if it undermines it, then you should ditch it.
Like, imagine you are on your deathbed, and a young highschool boy comes to interview you about your life for a school project. He asks - what did you accomplish? What are you most proud of? What did you learn? What is a story you’d like to tell my class? What are your regrets? If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?
What do you want your answers to be?
“imagine you are on your deathbed” is exactly where my mindset currently resides. I’m not close enough to the grave to truly be feeling this way, but I do feel like this is crisis-time, and with zero guarantee I’ll survive another 20 years, I’m beginning to value and fear time.
All of these suggestions have merit, and I appreciate them immensely. The scenario you painted is one of my greatest fears, with a slightly greater fear being that I don’t have answers to any of those questions. I try to live without regret. Do I have regrets? Absolutely. Do I allow them to control my existence? Well, that’s what the meds are for.
In all seriousness, I don’t know what I want my answers to be. Without answers to the impossible questions (what is the point of all of this?), I struggle to not only find answers, but to formulate questions worthy of answers.
Only thing that matters