[Life]: How To Deal With An Identity Crisis?!

[chochajin]

Hey!~

So, it's set. I've booked a flight to Germany for this winter vacation. I'll stay there for 2 weeks.
I haven't been home for Christmas for about 7 years or so now. Will be weird, I guess.
But it's a necessary step in order to find out what I really want.


The thing is that it's not as simple as: Stay in Japan or not?!
The real problem is that I have no idea what I want on almost each and every level in my life.

• I don't know where I want to live in the future.


• I don't know what kind of job I want to do.


• I don't know if I want to have children or not.

I just have no idea what I want for my future - other than being happy and healthy.

I think it's an identity crisis or whatever you want to call it. I don't think it's a midlife crisis, because I don't think it has to do with my age - other than the "baby question" where my biological clock is ticking louder and louder.

I still have no idea how to get out of this crisis.


I'm really afraid of any future job prospects. To be honest, what I've studied at university is nothing useful at all.
I haven't LEARNED anything that I can actually put to USE!
At first I studied to become a teacher for English and German (Realschullehramt), but after a few semesters I knew it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Even back then I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, I just knew what I didn't want to do.
I started again from zero and studied educational science (Diplom-Pädagogik) instead, focusing on adults.
My hope was that I could get into a company and work there in the Human Resources Department or coach new office workers or whatever. All the other options for people like me sounded HORRIBLE and I've already done internships in those fields and found them frustrating, e.g. dealing with migrant juveniles who can't speak German well and don't care about studying at all.
Others work with drug addicts, deal with domestic violence or got into marriage counseling.
NONE OF THESE are for me AT ALL!!!!

Now, you might wonder why I studied educational science then, but at that time I just didn't know what else to do and I really enjoyed the topics I got to study (sociology, psychology etc.).
HOWEVER, all of the things I learned are not useful. There is no money in that!
Seems like I've been in an identity crisis ever since I was out of school, huh? ....

If I were to go back to Germany (or Europe), I need to be super lucky to find a job that will take me from the spot although I don't have the necessary qualifications.
I will NOT work in the jobs that are meant for people with my degree. Although in recent years people say we have to be "Quereinsteiger" (career changer) anyways.



Hell, I even learned about "identity crisis" in my field of study, but I'm quite sure that it's not normal in your 30s! :( .....

I know that nobody here can help me, but I fear I can't help myself either.
It's just a very frustrating situation. Not a new situation at all, but it's getting worse and worse the longer it takes for me to figure things out.


I'm all for living in the moment and not thinking too much about the future. After all we never know if that future is coming or not.
But I also think it's wrong to keep living the exact same way that I've been the past few years - without thinking about the future at all ...

Comments

[chochajin.livejournal.com]

I know that. They work in various fields, but I've seen that the average salary of people with the same degree (although they work in various fields) is VERY low! I have NO idea how they can live with that!
The average was something between 1700 and 2300€ / month. THAT'S A JOKE!! T____T .....
Of course, some earned between 3000-5000€, but that's the exception - and of course it depends where you work. The average salary statistic is closer to reality.
So frustrating.


I've tried that kind of stuff. That's like one of the first things I tried doing in order to get out of this. But it didn't help at all! :(
The problem is that I can't really write anything of value on the list that would REALLY help me. It's only tiny things that I can write about like "want a cat" etc. ... -___-;

[asahifirsa.livejournal.com]

You're kind of jaded by you current salary, I think :)

My first job out of Uni paid 1500 Euro. After that I had a job that paid 2000 Euro. Then a job that paid 1800 Euro. Now I have a job that doesn't even pay for rent right now (I'm depending on my boyfriend for that right now).

But you know what? I never had the feeling that I did not have enough to pay for my life. I don't go out much. Mostly the cinema and sometimes dinner after or before (usually Chinese, sometimes I splurge for Indian). Most of my money went on the side so I could travel to Japan twice a year. And you know what, I managed that even with the 1500 a month (though the hotels were a lot lower class, now I usually stay at least in business hotels).

And you know what, I even have had at least a cat throughout my whole work life :)

If you can pay your bills and (in my case) travel, it's important to earn enough for that, but not necessarily important to earn more.

Oh I admit that I though that I should have earned more for what I did, that's one of the reasons I've started my own company now, but you know what. That lower salary in a secure job... it's constant, you can plan with it. You can't do that when you work for yourself. Sometimes you earn enough, sometimes you don't. There's no security really. So I guess you pay for the security as well with the salary. And you do usually get it 14x times a year (at least over here in Austria), so it's not that bad.

I admit though my segment (i.e. tourism) is generally not exactly a well paid segment. Other fields have better payments.

But you know what? Money doesn't make you happy. Why would you do a job were you earn 5000 Euro and hate every second of it? I'd rather have one where I get 2000 Euro and have some fun with colleagues and go hope and enjoy my life. If you have enough to live, the rest is just a surplus.

[chochajin.livejournal.com]

In Germany you don't earn money beyond the 12th month, but you do get "Weihnachtsgeld" in most cases.
I've already calculated everything and I don't know how YOU managed to live on that money, but I couldn not! After all the taxes, daily cost of living (phone bill, i-net, food etc.) and the rent, there's almost NOTHING left. There's NO way I could save money for a trip to Japan or anywhere else! :(
At least not when living in Germany with a low salary (1500-2200€). :(

I know that money doesn't make one happy.
I just don't want to go back to my old lifestyle where I couldn't afford ANYTHING and always had to worry if the money will last until the end of the month. Traveling ANYWHERE even just a short train ride within Germany was IMPOSSIBLE! I wasn't very happy back then!

And if I have a job that I don't enjoy much, but have to do in order to survive, I'd rather earn "enough" money with it so that I can at least afford traveling and stuff! :(

[asahifirsa.livejournal.com]

Well rent was €350 including most utilities, add €200 for food and you're at 550,- add another €100 for utilities not included, €45 for public transport and you're at aprox. €700. That leaves €400 for stuff like clothes and other non-essential expenses. Plus I got an extra €1200 (less tax on the 13th and 14th salary) in June and December. After 6 months if I only put €200 aside I'll have 1200 plus the 1200 extra makes 2400 for traveling (and shopping in Japan). I rarely ever used all that though. Flight was around €600, then a JR Pass for around €180, hotels for around 30-50 Euro a night.

[chochajin.livejournal.com]

That doesn't work out in Germany.
Let's say you earn 2000€ (before taxes). After taxes you'll have around 1350€ (minus Lohsteuer, Kirchensteuer, Arbeitslosenversicherung, Rentenversicherung, Krankenversicherung, Pflegeversicherung).
If you're lucky you might find an apartment for 500€, so let's say we're lucky.
Then we still have 850€ per month. We probably have to pay a private pension as well (private Rentenvorsorge), let's say about 200€, so we still have 650€.

As I haven't lived in Germany for such a long time I have no idea how much I should calculate for food, phone, internet, car etc. .... Let's say another 400€.

So now we have 250€ left each month. (If I calculate with the 700€ that you suggested, I wouldn't have enough money to live! .....)
I'd have to save a whole year in order to be able to travel to Japan (or anywhere else).
And in reality you permanently have to buy other expensive things (new furniture, a new car and whatnot).

*sigh* .........................

[asahifirsa.livejournal.com]

I think I came out to about the same after taxes. I've dropped out of church when I was 18 though so no Kirchensteuer. I thought you wanted to stay rural, are flats that expensive there? I admit I don't subscribe to any of that private pension stuff. €200 in 30-40 years will probably be worth next to nothing anyway.

I admit I never bought a new car. There's plenty of cars that are sold for half or a third of a new car and barely driven (Sunday drivers, grandparents, etc). Insurance is much cheaper on a used car as well.

I guess I am quite thrifty when it comes to shopping for appliances as well. I do invest in good stuff, but that holds out 10-15 years without any problems. I had a reserve fund for emergency expenses, that I filled up again afterwards. I don't have it now, because I had to give it to the bank as security for insolvency (it's a law here in Austria for travel agencies).

I'm not saying it was super easy, but I managed alright. With children it would be a whole different issue of course. In Japan I had a scholarship of 80.000 Yen monthly. I paid 25.000 for the room, another 10.000 for amenities, I don't recall how much, I think 3000-5000 for the commuter ticket, but the rest was enough for food and some entertainment. Mind, I was a student back then so I didn't really have any high needs. I even managed a trip to Hokkaido and one to Okinawa and one weekend trip to Atami. I did sell a bit through the internet though which paid mostly for the trips.

It's really not as bad as you think it is. Plenty of people manage on that salary and even less.

[chochajin.livejournal.com]

Well, the church tax is really low, so that's not exactly the problem here.

Yes, they are. And according to my family and friends apartments have become more expensive recently - and it's harder to even find an apartment EVEN in the countryside these days.

I never spend a lot of money. Never did.
But I don't want to go back to the dark days where I couldn't even afford water and had to drink sink water (I really don't like drinking it) - and when I couldn't buy the food that I wanted.

And like I said before, it's not about the money ONLY!
It's the fact that I might have a job that I don't like PAIRED with the fact that I will have MUCH LESS money than now - maybe to the extent that I can't travel anymore and have to worry about my finances a lot! :(

[asahifirsa.livejournal.com]

We have the best sink water in Vienna :) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Wiener_Hochquellenwasserleitung#Wasserqualit.C3.A4t

That's beside the point of course. It just shows how different our experiences are.

For some reason I was always quite lucky. Lucky in finding a job, lucky in finding a cheap apartment, lucky in getting what I bought for the money I paid. Therefore I'm more of the opinion that things will work out in the end. There might be some lows on the road, but it will turn out well in the end.

I might be pushing that view too much on you, as you've made quite the opposite experiences in the past. The truth lies somewhere in the middle though most of the times. There's some good and there's some bad.

Maybe it's because my mother is so pessimistic as well. Every time something happens to her it's like the whole world only did it to punish her. I opted for an optimistic view in the face of that as everything else would have quite literally obliterated me.

I'm sure you'll find something that works for you though. Either in Japan or somewhere else. Because you simply won't stand for staying in a bad situation anymore any longer than absolutely necessary. Right?