Emily Esfahani Smith

We're all in many relationships.

And in some of those relationships, belonging exists.

In some of those relationships, even close ones like to family members or friends, belonging might not exist.

And so I'm really talking about a specific feature of a relationship.

Yes, so Antoinette, that's such a great question.

So yes, a lot of us could find ourselves in situations that I think, like you said, feel misaligned, are comfortable, but don't necessarily fit with our values or how we saw our life going.

And there's that kind of grass is always greener effect, right?

Oh, if I just left my job or left this relationship, moved here, then things would be better.

And of course,

that that's not always the case.

Sometimes it might be the case, but it's not always the case.

And so I think what I'd recommend in a case like that is

to think about the situation that you're in right now.

In what sense is it misaligned?

Is it misaligned in the sense that it is running in the opposite direction of your values?

Are you working for a company, for example, that's not doing the sort of good in the world that you would like to be doing with your life?

Or is it something different?

Is it that the tasks that you're doing

the life that you're in feel boring or feel unstimulating, unsatisfying.

Because in that case, I think that there are ways to replenish meaning, to reconnect whatever it is that you're doing that might seem tedious, that might not seem glamorous, to whatever that bigger picture is that you see your life being a part of.