Well, I just had a very enjoyable weekend playing in the worship band for our annual men's retreat at my church. A quick 24 hour get away for the men to fellowship and get some great teaching, connect with one another, and make covenants to support one another in the Christian walk. I have been going to events like this weekend for most of my life and I always enjoy them, but one problem I get is that they so often also serve as a reminder to me of how strongly I want to be in full-time ministry and have yet to get the courage built up enough to make this dream a reality...either that or I just keep missing the doors of opportunity to step into ministry (but this is not exactly what I want to talk about in this post). Another observation I have (and more what I want to talk about), is that as this event came to an end I was just filled with a sense of dread of going back to my "day job". Today as I was getting packed up and getting ready to come back to the city that was all I could think about: How I did not want to go back to work on Monday; and I found it very discouraging to the point of being almost depressed. As I thought about it more I began to wonder why I feel this way and how often I feel this way. Do I only feel this way about my current employment? Is this a side effect of being unemployed for so long? Am I just being childish?
I pondered these questions and some thoughts (answers maybe) came to mind. First, this is not something I have only felt about my current job, but I have felt it about nearly every job I have had since I started working. With some employment it is a much stronger sense of dissatisfaction than with others -- and while currently it may seem like I feel more dissatisfied with this job than any other career, with retrospect I am reminded of some really depressing times I had in previous jobs *cough* RETAIL *cough*, where I probably just should have left the job long before I did. I think part of it could be that as I get older I realize more and more that I need to get serious about pursuing my dreams.
Secondly, while spending almost a full year being under employed/unemployed has made it quite difficult to get back into the swing of full-time work, I cannot say this feeling of dissatisfaction with my job is solely the result of me becoming lazy and getting used to having more time off than I should. I did notice when I first started back full-time that I was getting quite exhausted after about 3 days straight of work and was just wishing that the phone would not ring the next morning, but when I am at work I enjoy being at work, even on some of the more miserable days (not all the miserable days, but some of them). And that is another part of it: when I am at work I do not mind the job, and when I get into the groove (like by the third day or so) I feel this is not so bad. I actually enjoy hard work, and working diligently It is when I am in the midst of a couple days off in a row, or doing something that I enjoy more than work (visiting my family in Brooks or playing at a men's retreat) that I get to feeling really discouraged about having to go back to work on Monday.
As I contemplated writing this post I worried about sounding like I am just complaining about how *unfair* life is, or sounding like someone who does not want to grow up, "Oh life is to hard, I want to never grow up and go back to living the carefree life of a child." And maybe that is all I am, just a boy who does not want to grow up. I don't know. What I do know is that I have felt this nagging feeling of dissatisfaction, this feeling that there is something missing, for a whole lot longer than perhaps I realize myself, and I have never really admitted it to anyone (and here I am telling the world wide web), but I just felt tired of carrying it around. I felt tire of feeling that it needed to be hidden, because there should be no shame in admitting that you are unsatisfied with where your life is at the moment. And I may have just shocked everyone I know personally (and who happens to read my blog).
But now I feel conflicted again as I ponder the last paragraph: Am I truly that unsatisfied with where my life is at the moment, or am I just be my typical melancholy self? I thought I also felt particularly "happy" with my life? Is this not just the frustration of finding that my life has not followed the timeline I expected coming out in a very dramatic way? Okay, true, I may be exaggerating some when I say that I am unsatisfied with where my life is right now: I have a well paying job that I enjoy most of the time I am there, I attend and volunteer at an amazing church with amazing pastors, I have great friends, and overall I am pretty content with my life. Yet, there is still the sense of something not quite right in my life, almost like something is missing but more like I am just frustrated, and I am having a hard time figuring out the reason. Today as I pondered it I got a sense that it might be partly God given: that God put this nagging feeling in me to drive me to pursue Him and His purposes, and that I have perhaps distorted this feeling in the negative ones I have been describing. Maybe it truly is a sign that I have something missing in my life and I need to seek out the missing piece. Maybe it is my "Age" getting to me: knowing that there is a passion and a desire deep with in me that I have not fulfilled. Maybe it is simply that I am not in the right career.
I do not know the answer, all I know is that I am tired of getting near the end of a weekend, seeing Monday coming up a getting filled with that sense of dread of having to go back to work, and knowing that this must change. I plan on spending more of my free time over the next few weeks contemplating this and seeking out the answers. Maybe I really do need to make a change in my life and this the catalyst for that change.