Rant on Feeling Lost and Scared

Never thought I’d post on here in a million years, but here we are. Graduated several years back and joined a MM bank in a non-NYC city. Went into IB for reasons that I’m sure ring true to some other people on this site – friends were doing it, I had no idea what I really wanted to do with my career long-term, and this would help open up the most doors and connections out the gate (money didn’t hurt either). While I was never somebody who was dead-set on PE, I still always figured I would do my two years and jump to something else. However, I actually lucked out big time in that the spot I landed in was pretty good to me. Relative to nearly all my friends in IB, I actually didn’t hate my life during my analyst years. I really enjoyed it, actually. Sure, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows and I had to deal with my fair share of bullshit and late nights, but compared to my friends who were working 80-90+ hours consistently, it seemed like kind of a dream to be at a place with great culture, decent enough WLB / control of my time to actually be able to do things on weeknights and weekends with some consistency, and associates / VPs who I really respected and reciprocated that respect for me. I never took a recruiter call because I was content, learning, and getting great feedback / reviews, so why would I leave? But at the same time, I was never stopping to ask myself if I really liked the work itself or what my exits would be once I felt my time was up. It was always “I’ll figure that out when the time comes, and I’ll be all right.”

Well, fast forward a few years and the time to pay the piper came and hit me hard. Soon after I accepted the A2A promo, the team I had known for my entire tenure completely disintegrated. I’m talking analysts, associates, VPs – practically everyone who had been a true mentor and friend to me and who made the job worthwhile. This will probably sound pretty obvious to many of you, but understand that my group is not one where there’s a ton of turnover annually, and most people stay for a number of years. This also might sound pretty silly, but because of how small and close-knit my team is, I felt guilty backing out of my commitment I made in staying on as an associate. By this point, I’d built up a ton of goodwill, people had treated me well, and I didn’t want to screw everyone over by completely tanking the group and immediately leaving. The next six months or so were brutally understaffed, but I made it through and finally decided to start looking for new opportunities.

I thought once I made it through that stretch there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, but somehow I’m now more lost than ever. My pure weekly hours worked have improved, yet I’m more anxious and focused on my future career than ever, so it feels like my WLB is the worst it’s ever been. I have truly no idea what I want to do next and now feel like I’ve wasted several years of my life being “content” instead of looking out for bigger opportunities. I’m now slightly too old to jump into PE (and candidly, not sure I’d enjoy it as much as I used to after becoming more serious, moving in with my significant other, and valuing my evenings with her more than anything) but can’t stop kicking myself for not at least trying to jump there at around the two-year mark. I’ve thought about business school, but wonder if there’d be any real justification to the massive cost as I already have an IB background. Corp dev / strategy likely makes the most sense, but I’m scared about going down a career path that tons of people on here refer to as a “dead end”, and I’d want it to be in a new industry I’m really excited about (my current coverage isn’t terrible, but I’m not sure it’d be the world’s most interesting thing long-term). I’m not a super materialistic person, and my definition of success is simply being able to support a comfortable life for myself and my family, but I’m terrified that if I’m not careful with my next move post-banking stint I’ll completely jeopardize that. Doesn’t help when everywhere you look, all you see is fear mongering pieces like “if you don’t make over $1 million per year, you can’t afford a family of four” (obviously I know that’s not true but I’d be lying if I said seeing things like that constantly doesn’t have an impact on me). I look at all the incredible things my friends and classmates are doing on LinkedIn and now for the first time in my entire life am comparing myself to them constantly, which just makes everything worse.

Anyway, this has been way too long, but finally swallowing my pride, admitting I’m lost, and airing out these feelings to people has been helping a bit lately, and maybe someone will read this and realize if they’re feeling this way they’re not alone. Hope everyone else is doing a bit better than me today.