Feeling directionless in my career in my early 30's. Feel like I wasted so much time doing things that I was never passionate about, and now my financial future feels like it's in limbo. Advice?

Hello everyone,

I'll try not to ramble too much. I live in a major metro in the north-east, have been here about 8 years now. I worked in marketing agencies for most of my 20's, managing books of accounts and specializing in one service line but having experience in most of the marketing lines in the space. I'd always considered myself more of an introvert growing up, but I was articulate and passionate enough to succeed in a role like that, and my soft skills improved a lot over the years while I was managing relationships.

To make a long story short, I left my last job late November '24 after being there for 3+ years, and at my previous role for ~3 1/2, so it wasn't a question of me being able to hold down stable work and show up every day. I was burnt out, felt like there was no upward mobility for me where I was, I had more work than I could ever do efficiently, and I had some health scares in my family that I needed to deal with. I really felt like I was spinning my wheels making money for a capitalist machine that viewed me as a commodity rather than a human being, which I guess is more of an ethical and philosophical debate.

I took a few months off, having built a good financial cushion and really did nothing for awhile.

The last few months as my savings have been drained more and more I've been applying heavily and interviewing and just keep getting rejections. I'm not even sure if I want to stay in the industry, I just feel like I have to keep applying for marketing jobs because that's what my professional experience is in. Before marketing I mostly worked food service jobs in my late teens/early 20's.

I'm watching peers who I of course respected, but ones who I felt weren't more competent than I was in any meaningful way, get promoted into director level roles at this age and I feel like I wasted all this time with nothing to show for it. I feel like I've been the person who shows up and gets the job done without rocking the boat, and that wasn't the best way to get ahead in the corporate world, and now I'm losing my foothold in it entirely.

If I could go back to school for a masters I would but I can't afford to take on the debt and I'm not even sure what I would go for.

There are plenty of things I would love to do - Civil/Environmental Engineering, Architecture, Biology/Zoology, Academic Research, my dream job was to work as a musician/writer/poet. But it feels like these are all pipe dreams with where my life as it right now. At this point just need to get my career started again before it gets any worse, I'm in a bit of a free fall.

Just looking for advice from anyone who's been in my shoes, anyone who has ideas of where to look or what to do. My undergrad is in English so I don't have any hard transferable skills, just years of marketing experience that hasn't translated into another role for me yet. I've made it late round in a handful of interviews just to get no's and I'm back to square one.

I'm about to just take another restaurant job or something just to keep myself afloat, but I feel like I should have something figured out and it just feels like time is passing me by, while the people around me are thriving with clear direction and I'm just drifting. I've been considering becoming a merchant mariner lately just to have some sort of direction again.

Open to any thoughts people may have - leads, ideas, stories of a similar predicament.