tl;dr: the higher you go, the more you may need them.

I was talking with 2 friends the other day, both roughly my age.

One of them was saying how he was in a job that “checked many of the boxes,” but didn’t engage him emotionally. He was feeling a bit down about it, particularly because he was relatively high up in the organizational chart.

The other one, an amateur pilot, said, “you’re in a holding pattern. They aren’t fun, but sometimes they are really necessary, especially as you get older.”

Part of the excitement of youth is finding things that are interesting and in which you are passionate. As we age, sometimes, it takes longer to find those things that really light us up, even if we understand that there’s going to be some drudgery along with it.

When we’re in those moments between “the thing that lit us up” and the “next thing that lights us up,” we still have to put one foot in front of the other.

These are the holding patterns.

Unless you are planning to completely opt out of society (always an option) until you figure it out, you may have to do something that is an “in-between” thing.

The first step is in recognizing that you’re in one. The second may be recognizing that it’s necessary.