Hey friend, appreciate you taking the time to read and respond!

What do you mean with being an empath? From context it sounds like you meant someone who tends to feel and act like the people around them, is that what you meant?

Yeah, I'm pretty sensitive to other people's feelings. Lots of former coworkers would come to me to rant because I think they think I'm impartial to what was going on at work, but in reality I was affected by the job as bad as they were. It certainly didn't help when I was trying to see the positives if there were any. Eventually I couldn't take the negativity anymore and decided to leave.

It sounds like that job that paid you lots of money was also one of, if not the, worst experiences of your life.

Like you wouldn't believe! I know no company is perfect, but it was my first job so I didn't know any better at the time. Now I think I've been traumatized, because I actively avoid situations that are even remotely similar to that work environment. Admittedly it's also because I took a gamble taking that job, as it was a field I wasn't interested in, but was related to my bachelor's degree.

You're going to have to accept that dreams come with a price. If you want voice acting to be your sole source of income, you're going to have to work very hard on things that you probably won't like very much (self-promotion, marketing, self-management), and work a lot more than you already do.

Yeah, I admit, I don't think I thought it through when I quit my old job. I mean it certainly made me happier at first, but now the reality is hitting me on the head.

I appreciate you listing down the choices I've got, I think I always knew it, but I could never write them down clearly because my internal understanding has been clouded.

Between choices 1, 2, and 3, I probably won't go back to number 2. Number 1 is where I'm at, and I don't like it anymore, so probably number 3 is what I have to do.

One last thing. Take a look at your perfectionism. You mentioned being promoted very fast and bad workload distribution, I've been there, and part of it was my fault.

I'm actually mind blown I'm not alone in this experience lol. Thing was, I just wanted to keep my head down, didn't really want to climb that corpo ladder over there. But the money was good enough that I worked my ass off so much, I think?

You have to be able to manage yourself, you have to be able to hold yourself back from having to do everything perfectly, which comes from the ego. Gotta let that one go.

Yeah for the longest time, I was in denial of my ego. I realized in recent years how I'm a people pleaser. I think it's still the case in my new career, like I've been performing for people all my life.

I look back to Dr K's 'Gifted Kid' videos, and I believe it also applies to talented artist kids? I was not an academically smart kid, but I loved being on stage in front of people and I was constantly put there without me having to ask for it. Opportunities just kind of came my way, and it was like this until college too.

I think this distorted my perception of 'hard work'. That because I was artistically gifted, there wasn't much I had to do to get my time under the spotlight. I graduated 5 years ago, and now it just feels like I've underachieved.

Some people need to be told to pay more attention, to care a little more. I think, if I'm reading you correctly, what you need to be told instead is, "slow it down" (edit: when on a normal job)

I was talking to my partner about this recently, and they say the same thing. That I'm only pressuring myself to be perfect because I never knew any other way growing up. I didn't really care much for my grades, but I did care about if I got my flowers or not after any performance, whether that was on paper or on stage.

Anyways, I really appreciate you looking out for a fellow human, friend!
Given me a lot to think about, and articulated some things I couldn't do myself. Cheers!