Trapped by life

Do you feel trapped by your life?

You know, that feeling when you’re driving the same route to work or folding the same laundry for the 100th time and you think, “Really? This is it. This is my life?”

I think everyone has moments like those when we wonder what happened to the dreams we once had. We wonder how we got to this point in our lives and whether there’s any way to regain some of the idealistic dreams of our youth.

My husband and I watched a movie this week featuring a couple who felt trapped by their suburban lives. They resented their children and each other because they had ended up as a stereotypical housewife and a boring husband working a meaningless, unfulfilling job.

After the movie, my husband and I had a long talk about how to avoid that situation because it was a pretty horrible picture. Even though I have those moments where I feel boxed in by my life and my responsibilities, I don’t ever want it to overwhelm me.

The one thing we identified as a problem was that in the movie, this couple was entirely selfish. They both thought only of themselves, their own happiness and “finding themselves.” In the end, their selfish pursuit of their own happiness became their downfall.

Don’t get me wrong, I think being fulfilled in your work and in your life is incredibly important. But there has to be a balance between “finding yourself” and being a responsible parent. The fact is, when someone brings children into this world, they have to make sacrifices – the biggest of which may be the dream of how their lives turn out.

So instead of feeling trapped or cheated out of our former dreams, my husband and I decided we are going to focus on the excitement of building new dreams as family.

How do you strike a balance between pursuing your own dreams and raising a family? Do you ever feel trapped by your life? How do you handle it?