Are We All in the Same Place?

I just left my friend’s house and it’s very late. As we sat around in the backyard, I realized all three of us women were thinking about what to do next. One had a law degree and left after both superiors quit and she didn’t want their jobs, one tried to use that math masters degree but the girls came first, and I had been home with my boys for ten years. The sky was black because it was night and a storm was threatening. Did we have the same thoughts?

I spent four years getting a degree in philosophy because I thought that somehow it would all make sense, but it never has. For all time, we have tried to figure out what it all means and I’m not just referring to the challenge of raising a family and having kids. Do I think too much? Am I the only one that needs headsets and music to make it through the simplest of life’s tasks?

In high school I spent a great deal of time wishing I could just be a waitress in a New Jersey diner and be done with my life choices. After all, both my parents had never finished high school and college was an extremely foreign land. I’m well past this now but I still wish it were easier.

What will really make us happy career-wise? Why do we keep asking this question and never seem to get an answer?