If you’re in a job that you don’t like, one thought has probably entered your mind at some point: “I don’t care.”
Maybe it entered your mind while you were grinding away over a weekend to hit an aggressive deadline, or when you were talking about deliverables and timing in a big internal meeting, or pretty much every single second of every single day.
If it happened at all, it could be time for you to consider switching careers.
You spend a ton of time at work—40 hours a week makes up a significant portion of your life. Spending time working on things you don’t care about, sitting in meetings discussing stuff you find pointless, or engaging in silly office politics that leave you with a feeling of “I don’t care” is the sign of a big issue.
It’s a problem if you feel apathetic toward a major part of your life. You should be passionate about the things you spend your energy doing. So if you just don’t care, it could be time to switch things up.
You probably used to care. There likely was a time when you felt optimistic and excited about the opportunity to be involved in something. Maybe you were excited about the mission, purpose, or potential for your role. Set out to get that feeling again.
Think about how you ended up where you’re currently at. Map your life backward. If you do so, you’ll realize that a lot of random and seemingly unimportant events ultimately led you to where you are now.
Really think about it. If most people map their life backward, they would notice a distinct pattern of events.
High school sets you on a certain track. In high school, most students have the opportunity to pick certain electives. These electives (things like video production, journalism, business law, economics) generally give students exposure to things they may or may not be interested in. You probably decided which classes you wanted to take based on four key criteria:
- Things you were interested in
- Things your friends were interested in
- Things that you thought would make you look cool to your peers
- Things related to what your parents do for work
Personally, one of my high school friend’s father was a computer programmer, so I got an introduction into programming from him.
For college, you pick a more defined track and a specific university to attend. You probably have a general idea in mind for your major. This would largely be based on the things that you’ve found interesting previously in life.
You might make adjustments over the course of your college career based on the classes you try and the friends you make, but you have far less time than you think to pick a direction. Especially given the fact that you need to start pursuing internships in the field that you eventually want to pursue while you’re still unsure of what exactly you want to do.
Once you graduate, your best chance to land a job coming out of school is to pursue one that fits with your major and previous internship experience. So, you continue down the path that you set in motion years ago.
This is exactly why so many people in their mid to late twenties find themselves stuck with a plan that they made decades ago without really knowing what they enjoy doing. To make matters worse, these people have no reason to fully understand the ramifications of the decisions that they made at the time.
Now you’re here, and you’ve realized that just don’t care about the industry that you identified as an interest over a decade ago. This shouldn’t be that surprising! It’s OK to zoom out and start searching for something that you care more about. When you make progress toward a goal that you no longer care about, are you really making any progress at all? Just because you’re here now, doesn’t mean that you need to stay here.
There are so many different career paths out there. You don’t need to continue working in one that you hate. Go find something that makes you feel like you’re making a meaningful difference. You’ll find yourself caring again. You’ll start caring a lot.
Starting today, everything that happened before no longer matters. It doesn’t matter who your best friend was in high school. It doesn’t matter which courses you took in college. And it doesn’t matter which job you took coming out of school.
It’s never too late to throw away the arbitrary sequence of life events that led to you being where you are today. It’s never too late to start something new.
If you’ve been thinking, “I just don’t care” a lot lately, know that the path you’re on now isn’t the only path you can take. You may need to shake things up to find something that you do care about—and you’re definitely not alone.
This article was originally published on Firehose Online Coding Bootcamp Blog. It has been republished here with permission.