The Trimming and Cutting of Careers

What do I want to do?

I am continuing to struggle with my life's path as I go through this exercise of setting goals.  As I sat down last night and worked in a desultory fashion, what I found is that my list covered lots of interests that I have, but hardly anything around actually finding or changing what I do for a living.  This is a little counterproductive at first glance as none of these things seems to lead to something that would allow it to replace my primary form of income.  Which in itself is bothersome as I truly do not see a long term future - either in personal challenge or in employment - in the field.

So what to do?  I cannot force myself to suddenly embrace what I do in a holocaust of interest - I have tried this before with very limited success.  It is like pouring charcoal lighter on a fire:  big flame, then nothing.  Even a longer term slow attempt to find areas of expertise leads to another set of realizations about what is available locally and the thought of having to relocate and re-start all over.

But accepting both of those items leaves me where I find myself today:  finding many things of interest which I desire to do or pursue while leaving the largest area of my life at this moment essentially untouched.  It is as if I am gardening around a huge tree, knowing that it will block light to the rest of my garden but still continuing to plant in hopes that something will come up.

The tree's the thing of course:  it either needs to be trimmed up or cut down.  But in either of these examples those trimmings or indeed the entire tree itself cannot sit there:  it has to be hauled off to somewhere and either carefully trimmed after that or completely replaced with a new plant.  And it is in those things - the trimming or the cutting down and replacing - that I find myself caught.

It all boils down to two simple questions:

1) What do you want to do?
2) How badly do you want to do it?
3) How will replace what you currently have?