It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:
After 13 years of full-time work in the back end of real estate, I’m burned out, and my resentment towards my job, my coworkers, my company, and my industry is poisoning my whole life.
My work directly enriches the already-wealthy. I greatly resent being a cog in the system that allows the same LLC to buy 40 single family houses in a month, while I make just enough to live, at nearly the top of my earning potential, and will almost certainly never be able to buy a house for myself. I resent that the job I was originally hired to do was given to a legacy employee who just … wanted to do it (small company, no recourse). No matter how much I tell myself that I’m just doing it for the money, or try to detach myself, I can’t let go of the resentment that the work I used to love doing is now perpetuating social inequality and making me miserable on a daily basis.
It also doesn’t help that my partner is a social worker and is directly helping people in a career he loves. Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy for him; he has worked incredibly hard to get to this point and he deserves a career he can be proud of. It’s just becoming more and more difficult to celebrate his wins and commiserate his losses when I am being slowly ground down into bitterness daily.
I’ve never felt more stuck in my entire adult life. I’ve been job searching with no luck. The only interview I’ve had was for a job that would have been absolutely perfect, but was gut-churningly-not-right. I know you often say to lean on your network, but I don’t have a network, I have a loose collection on LinkedIn of people I used to work with, who probably wouldn’t remember me. I haven’t had a standout career; I’m a high performer, but my job doesn’t translate to metrics very well. I don’t know how to pivot into other industries, because outside of basic office soft skills my experience is pretty narrow, and I’m absolutely ready to change industries. I can’t afford to take a pay cut to get an entry-level job in a new industry or go back to school for a more marketable degree (my bachelor’s is in art history).
I guess my question is, how can I let go of the resentment of forcibly upholding this dystopian capitalist hellscape that I was not prepared to support and actively perpetuates harm? How can I keep my bitterness from making me mean and angry day after day? How can I keep myself from comparing my situation to those of family and friends who are making enough to live comfortably in careers they enjoy? It’s been so hard, for so long, and I’m reaching the end of my rope. I’ll take literally any spark of light at the end of the tunnel you can provide.
Readers, what’s your advice?
