Weekend Open Thread – Corporette.com

“The Midnight Library” resonates with me more than this essay, as a confirmed childfree woman (and childfree husband).

The premise is a library filled with books about all your possible lives. And it’s YOUR possible lives, not any possible life. But the life you could’ve lived, had you chosen to go right at the fork in the road, instead of left.

To the OP, I’m also struggling with what to do with myself, particularly from a career standpoint. Am I just supposed to do this for another 20 years? Keep trying to climb the ladder and chase the money and grow my profile in my field? What if it turns out that I arrive at the top of the mountain and the view isn’t worth it? What if it turns out that I wasn’t even climbing a mountain at all, just sprinting on a treadmill to nowhere?

One exercise that I’ve done in the past (and honestly planning to do again this weekend, see above) is the weighted decision matrix. Here’s the steps:

Write down up to 5 categories of things that make you feel satisfied in your life.

Assign a percentage to the influence, the sum of all categories should add to 100%. (ie: career = 25%, marriage = 30%, hobbies = 20%, etc., whatever that mix is for you).

Write down a percentage with your current satisfaction, the sum of all categories should be add to 100%. (ie: 15% satisfied with career, 90% satisfied with marriage, etc., whatever that mix is for you).

Multiple the weight and the current satisfaction. Sum the numbers. What’s your score? Which area(s) are you weak? Can you make incremental changes to address the weak areas?

For example, if you say career influences your satisfaction 25%, but you’re only 10% satisfied with it, maybe you need to find a new job.