I’m in my early 30s, married (no kids yet), and have spent nearly a decade in high-paying, prestigious white-collar roles. I’ve changed jobs a few times, and while the first year is usually fine, I find that over time, the demands increase while the work itself feels increasingly meaningless. I’m conscientious and responsible but have grown to detest work.
I don’t expect to find deep purpose in my job but I also don’t want it to spill into my personal life with stress and anxiety. I’ve saved enough to keep us afloat for a while (especially since my wife also works), but not enough to retire. Over the past few years I’ve improved my boundaries cutting back from 60+ hour weeks to a standard 9-5.
One of my biggest struggles is dealing with ambiguity (examples being constantly being handed problems that require cross department alignment or data that simply doesn’t exist) rather than structured tasks. Despite feeling fortunate in many ways, I still find work draining and unfulfilling.
For those who have faced something similar:
- Have you found ways to make work more tolerable?
- Did shifting to a lower-paying but less demanding role help? What did that look like?
- Is this more of a personal mindset issue that I need to work through?
Would love to hear from others who’ve navigated this.
Comments
Please do not delete your post after receiving your answer. Consider leaving it up for posterity so that other Redditors can benefit from the wisdom in this thread.
Once your thread has run its course, instead of deleting it, you can simply type “!lock” (without the quotes) as a comment anywhere in your thread to have our Automod lock the thread. That way you won’t be bothered by anymore replies on it, but people can still read it.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
I was working 50 to 60 hours per week at a job that paid me almost 200 Grand a year. I ended up losing my marriage over it. You are at the point in your life where you need to prioritize what is actually important to you. I promise you if you’re spending all that time away your wife is feeling it. Now is the time to make a change and focus on what really matters.
I don’t. I chose academia. If I had no other choice, I’d switch to industry to support my family, but my personal self esteem is tied, to a degree, to having a helper job.
I’m kind of there. 32 and in a high paying job (for mh standard) but tired each week of going at it. It’s 100% remote so I know I have it easy and would like to endure a bit more but it’s tough with the feeling of doing meaningless work like you said.
My plan is to switch jobs because I’ve been in this one 4 years. That’s the only way I can stay motivated. Hopping every 3-5 years.
In America, the high paying jobs expect you to be consumed. The only exceptions to this are people with rare and valuable hard skills.
I don’t have the answer but I’m nearly 40 with no kids and struggling with the same thing. I live in Europe, so I work 35 hour weeks with 25 days of annual leave, work from home 3 days per week, and yet I still am struggling with the mental weight of the job.
Tasks don’t get resolved each day and they pile up until it’s hard to get them out of my mind outside of work, and everybody knows it’s way more responsibility than one person can do to a high standard, but there aren’t enough people who can do the job, especially for the pay on offer. And things require collaboration, which makes them more confusing and difficult to resolve.
My strategies are trying to be organized and put things in writing so that I can let them leave my mind when I’m not working. To do lists and excel sheets mainly. I try to always have a holiday or something to look forward to. I’m trying to scale back my responsibilities (without looking like I can’t handle it) and automate processes to make things smoother in the future.
And I’m planning to take early retirement at 55 regardless of the math, I am in a good enough financial position to make it work. I own a home and am considering taking a career back at some point (another benefit of living in Europe) and trying to see how far savings and renting the house will take me in a lower cost of living country.
You’re not alone, the whole world seems to be struggling with senselessness of it all.
I don’t even know if this is helpful or relevant to you, OP, but I guess I just don’t feel that from the white collar work I do. I’m in software development and the day kinda flies by, especially when I’m in the zone building something. There’s enough variety in what I work on that it doesn’t ever really feel stale to me, and I see the end result of stuff I build getting put to use immediately so it doesn’t feel meaningless either. And as I work on new projects involving new technology I know that I’m further building my skillset so it feels like I’m growing as an individual in the process of doing my work.
I’ve also always kept work-life balance a high priority for myself. I’ve never put in a 60 hour week, and rarely go above 40. I occasionally get pinged after hours for something, but that’s pretty rare and usually my own fault because something I built broke.
I don’t know if that’s helpful at all. Just one guy’s perspective.
I was sitting with an old VP of mine who was making probably 3-4x what I was making at the time. He was in first and out last. He always complained that he never got to the fun parts of marketing – the creative stuff. But he was a great boss and a good steward of our team.
Seeing his experience, and the impact it had on him and his family, I decided I didn’t really want to go for that kind of role. The pay doesn’t keep up with the work.
So, part of it was a mindset thing. I value my time with my family, friends, and community more than I value work. Work is a thing I do so I can do all the other things I want to do.
Remote work also provided me a work around. Instead of trying to get promoted to make lots of money, I just got more jobs. I make around $220k a year. I have two jobs. I get the jobs done in 20-30 hours a week. If I had single job that paid $220k a year, I’d be working way more hours in most scenarios. Also, if I get laid off from one job, I still have one decent paying job left.
Ultimately, you need to prioritize your goals and your actions should flow from that.
For me, it’s accepting that work is work. I have the “dream job”. Great pay, complete autonomy, low hours. I still find myself being discontent, though.
The harsh reality is that we are working a job we have to work, when we’d rather be doing anything else. That will be the case in any job. You may have a temporary honeymoon period when starting a new job, but eventually that wears off and you’re back to that same discontent feeling sneaking in.
At a certain point, you have to be able to find contentment. When your job is everything you need it to be, but you still aren’t happy, that’s when it’s time to focus on personal development to find that contentment.
-No
-No. It was more boredom or frustration without results. Schedule flexibility is super helpful with kids if you go that route, so that is a good trade off you’ll have to remind yourself if you have it because it’s easy to get negative.
-Perhaps consider focusing on positive attributes, journaling, connection with people, practicing thankfulness and gratuity.
I’m not sure you’ll find a definitive one path answer here. If it exists you’ll make a lot of money selling that idea. Try some other jobs out, network for other industry. Find meaning and joy in the small stuff. If you go the kid route definitely prioritize them.