I've lurked a little on this sub, but first time poster. I'm just shy of 39. I have a wife and a toddler. I'm the breadwinner. We don't have an elaborate lifestyle, but the small amount of comforts we have we'd like to maintain. I have a slightly upper-middle class white collar job, but we rent, we struggle to save, we don't take holidays. All the while a slight drop in my salary will start to see our minor “quality” of life diminish, but I can't keep doing what I'm doing.
I'm one of those guys that almost accidentally stumbled into a career path. It's served me well, but I've never liked it. I've tried to get out multiple times, but each time I trip, stumble and end up back where I started and usually worse off as a result.
Bottom line is I've got a lot of responsibilities and a history of poor decisions taken at poor times. But I can't do this any more. I literally feel my life slipping away while everyone around me keeps spewing hot nonsense and legitimately seem invested in the most trivial and pointless matters. My problem is I even stopped paying attention to the things that do matter, the things that if I don't start paying attention to soon will get me fired. You might say that kind of takes care of the problem for me, doesn't it? No, not without a plan of what I'm going to do next, and I simply have no idea what that is or could be.
I don't see any way out. No real practical, implementable way out.
Please help. I'm suffocating under the weight of it all.