Clarification

Thanks to the astute observations of a friend, I have refined my perspective on my current frustration. I do have a personality. The one he described sounds very familiar to me. The fact that my personality may easily go unnoticed in crowded situations does not bother me. I'm glad to know that it could be noticed in individual interactions. The problem I face is that I have become buried by the minutia of my own life. I seem to have forgotten how to be myself and see the strengths of my personality. Perhaps it is a touch of insecurity at the annoyance of not finding a job as fast as I had hoped. That insecurity is magnified by the fact that the vast majority of job descriptions I find are looking for "6 to 8 years experience with increasing responsibilities" etc. Unfortunately some of us do not have that many years experience, but we still have to feed our families.

Regardless of how buried I had become there is also the fact that I have been undergoing an internal transformation over the last year and I am still trying to make sense of the implications of the changes I have chosen to make. I hope that the end result will be a greater sense of focus and direction in all areas of my life.

As for the job - I have to be clear if this is the impression my previous posts had left:

I hope I'm wrong, but reading between the lines it sounds as though you feel that having a high profile or highly paid or publicly perceived as "important" job is more substantial than simply doing your best to be honest and dutiful at whatever you do.

I do not care about the wages (so long as I can support my family) or how onlookers might view the job I hold. I mean only that I cannot be content doing a job where I have nothing unique to contribute. If every other person at the company can do the job that I have been given, then why am I there? If I am in a company where I am allowed to give my input, rather than just follow the prescribed process and churn out the desired product, then I consider that substantial. I have had (and enjoyed) jobs delivering dry cleaning and spraying pesticides where I had the opportunity to do more than just "the job." I just want to find another opportunity where I can feel that I am making a useful contribution rather than just being an interchangeable cog in the mechanisms of the company commerce.