A Mid, Mid-Life Crisis Observation

My brother Charles and I had an interesting conversation yesterday. Most people start their career lives with the goal of doing something they love. Eventually, most end up doing what they have to do, with the intent of doing what they love to do... eventually. After a certain time, when more people rely on your paycheck (wife, kids, mortgage companies, etc.), the risk of doing something different in your career is far greater and your options become much more limited.

So, to a certain extent, Charles and I are limited to doing something we don't love, spending over 1/3 of our time doing it, and now hope that we get enough hours with the family and when the job is no longer there, that we've saved enough for our retirement to be okay.

On the other side of the coin, we also know that our primary responsibility is to our family, so we don't begrudge that. And we also know that our jobs are gifts from God and we should honor that gift by doing it to the best of our ability, no matter how much passion we inherently have for it. But, on a personal, daily level, it is an odd conundrum.

In the end, it may just be life for everyone and we should just suck it up. But, Charles and I have reached that point in our life where we've slowly stopped looking for what we want to achieve and have turned our daily focus to what we have to achieve.