You're Not Lost. You're Just Looking Past Yourself

Why you ended up in the wrong job and kept missing what you love

David Meszaros

Nov 15, 2025

A compass pointing inward toward the heart, symbolizing self-discovery and recognizing hidden interests

Have you ever asked yourself why you’re doing a job that doesn’t interest you at all?

How did you end up there? And why do your only hobbies seem to be eating, drinking, and watching movies?

You might think you never had any real interests to pursue.

That this unfulfilling situation was the only option you could find.

If that’s how you feel, I believe you completely.

I was there once too.

But what if I told you that you have many different interests, and that you could live a more fulfilled life or even change careers by reconnecting with what you actually love?

The problem was never that you were empty.

You were made blind by external factors.

Today I’ll show you how you lost your sight regarding your interests and passions, and why this happened to so many of us.

How I Ended Up in the Wrong Job

To help you understand the problem better, I want to share my own experience of not recognizing my interests early in life.

At the end of gymnasium, my homeroom teacher asked me what I wanted to study, and I didn’t have an answer. Back then, despite my good grades, it was clear to me that I didn’t have any real interests. So I turned to my parents for advice about that life-shaping question:

What should I study?

My mother told me that being a lawyer or a doctor was best because those professions were well paid and had high status in society. I took a closer look. But when I realized how much studying it would take, I began to doubt whether I was capable of studying medicine or law. So I went back to my parents and asked them what else I could study.

My mother said that I talk a lot, so she came up with another idea: to study media. She already imagined me as a famous talk show host who earns well.

That idea seemed better than law, so I actually went to a media school.

Unfortunately, at that time nobody noticed that I was an introverted kid whose legs turned to jelly whenever I had to speak in front of others. No one pointed out that I loved flipping through biology books about animals and plants, or that I enjoyed looking at the atlas and exploring countries and islands.

The problem was not that I didn’t have interests.
The problem was that I didn’t recognize them.

So I went to media school, where most subjects felt like a chore. Nothing caught my attention except a single film theory seminar, but I didn’t recognize that signal either.

After graduation, I ended up in a junior IT administration program. I could learn it easily because I had an affinity for technology, and it paid the bills.

The job chose me.
I didn’t choose it.

Since then, I’ve built a career as a data analyst, but the job doesn’t mean much to me. I never read about data on weekends, and after five p.m. I forget about work completely. After years of stable income and security, I finally had the luxury to ask a different question.

Back then, there was a lot of hype around finding your passion, and it affected me too.

So I asked myself:

What am I interested in? (Thinking it should replace the job I was doing.)

It would have been nice if someone had come to me and said:

David, you love biology. You spent hours reading those books as a kid.
You are interested in geography. You used to explore the atlas and dream about remote places like deserts and mountains.
You filmed short movies and loved the process.
You started four or five blogs and read constantly as a child.
You loved sports. As a teenager, you were on the athletic team, and you still run in every new city you move to.

Those signs were all there, but I never recognized them. They were invisible patterns in my own story.

And this does not just happen to me.

It happens to many of us.

It is not our fault.

There are several research-backed reasons why we cannot see our own interests.

And more importantly, there is a way out.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly. Thank you. — David

Where the Blindness Begins

To understand why this happens to so many of us, we need to look at the roots of the problem. Why do we struggle to recognize patterns of our interests? Sometimes these patterns appear right in front of us. We see them many times, but we simply do not pick them up because they do not fit into our mental framework. In other cases, we refuse to accept that a certain interest even exists. This happens unconsciously, in a kind of autopilot mode.

Research shows that a lack of self-acceptance does not only make us feel bad about ourselves. It also prevents us from seeing certain parts of who we are.

A 2023 study defined lack of self-acceptance as “the rejection of certain emotions, behaviors, or beliefs about oneself, accompanied by resistance to these aspects emerging.”

In other words, when we cannot accept a part of ourselves or one of our interests, our mind creates resistance.

We do not just feel uncomfortable about it. We literally stop seeing it.

This happens through what psychologists call motivational barriers. When certain information threatens our sense of being acceptable or good enough, the ego protects us by making that information less visible. It is not a conscious process. The mind simply filters out interests that feel unsafe to acknowledge, just as mine filtered out biology and geography because they did not align with what my parents valued.

But why do we lack self-acceptance at an early age?

A 2024 study on self-acceptance identified three main categories of adversity that can prevent us from developing a healthy sense of self-acceptance. It is important to note that these categories often overlap and are not entirely separate from each other.

Intrapersonal Adversity

People who have experienced physical or existential threats learn to stay in a constant state of alertness and protection. These events, such as war or serious illness, can prevent you from accessing your emotions.

You stop trusting your own body and feelings. For instance, if you learned as a child that strong emotions were dangerous, you might later reject or numb emotions as an adult, even feelings of joy.
You start seeing vulnerability as weakness. Instead of accepting fear, sadness, or pain as natural parts of being human, you judge or hide them.
You build a false self that focuses on control and safety instead of authenticity and acceptance.

Over time, this leads to perfectionism, overthinking, or emotional detachment as ways to defend against the fear rooted in earlier threats.

When survival feels uncertain, exploring interests becomes a luxury you cannot afford. Your mind learns to ignore anything that does not relate to safety and control, including curiosity and passion.

Intrapersonal adversity teaches people that being themselves is unsafe, making genuine self-acceptance impossible until they rebuild a sense of inner safety.

Interpersonal Adversity

Our relationships with parents and caregivers shape how we see ourselves and what we allow ourselves to want. These patterns often make our true interests invisible.

1. Conditional Love

Your parents only praised you when you brought home good grades or won competitions. Affection came with conditions: be successful, be impressive, be worthy.

What you learned: “I am only lovable when I achieve something important.”

What became invisible: Your love for cooking, gardening, or playing music — anything small, quiet, or “just for fun.” These activities could not make you feel worthy, so your mind filtered them out as irrelevant.

2. Strict Standards

Your parents only respected certain careers such as doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Anything creative or unconventional was dismissed as “not a real job” or “a waste of potential.”

What you learned: “Only certain paths are acceptable. Everything else is failure.”

What became invisible: Your interest in writing, art, working with animals, or teaching children. Your mind learned to skip over these ideas as “not serious enough” before you even considered them.

3. Controlled Autonomy

Your parents made every decision for you, including what you wore, which activities you joined, and who you spent time with. When you showed interest in something they did not approve of, they redirected you “for your own good.”

What you learned: “My wants do not matter. Others know better than I do.”

What became invisible: Any interest that felt truly yours. You stopped noticing what excited you because you learned not to trust your own preferences.

4. Emotional Invalidation

When you were scared, your parents said “don’t be dramatic.” When you were sad, they told you to “toughen up.” Your feelings were treated as problems to fix rather than signals to understand.

What you learned: “My feelings are wrong. I should not trust what I feel.”

What became invisible: Careers in therapy, counseling, or any work requiring emotional intelligence, because you learned your emotional instincts were unreliable. Or creative pursuits that require vulnerability.

Socio-cultural Adversity

Sometimes the pressure does not come from parents, caregivers, or personal crises. It comes from the world around us telling us who we are allowed to be.

1. Immigrant or Minority Pressure

You grew up in an immigrant or minority community where your family sacrificed everything to give you opportunities. There was an unspoken expectation: do not waste it on something frivolous. Prove you belong. Make them proud.

What you learned: “I have to choose the safest, most respectable path. I cannot afford to follow my curiosity.”

What became invisible: Your love for photography, dance, or environmental science — anything that felt risky or did not directly honor your family’s sacrifice.

2. Class Expectations

You grew up working-class, watching your parents struggle. Creative or unconventional careers felt like luxuries for people with safety nets. “Artists starve. Writers don’t pay bills.”

What you learned: “Following my interests is selfish. I need to be practical.”

What became invisible: Your passion for design, music, or storytelling. Your mind dismissed them before you even explored them because survival mattered more than fulfillment.

3. Gender or Cultural Roles

Your culture or religion had clear ideas about what people like you should do. Boys do not dance. Girls should not be too ambitious. Your role is to be the caretaker, the provider, the modest one, or the strong one.

What you learned: “Certain interests are not for people like me. I would be rejected if I pursued them.”

What became invisible: Any interest that did not fit the script, whether that is a man interested in nursing, a woman interested in engineering, or anyone afraid to stand out and invite judgment.

The Weight of Representation

When you belong to a minority group, every choice can feel like it represents your entire community. You may feel pressure to be impressive, respectable, or acceptable enough to shape how others see people like you.

That pressure makes exploring personal interests feel dangerous. So your mind protects you by hiding certain paths before you even consider them.

Now you understand why you might overlook your interests and why you might choose a profession that does not make you lose track of time.

Unfortunately, these are only the root causes. They do not disappear with time. They continue to operate in daily life, keeping us blind and disconnected from ourselves.

How the Filter Keeps Running

Let’s say the root causes mentioned above shaped how and what we perceive about ourselves. On the other hand, we might assume that growing up and becoming more self-aware as adults could help fill the gap in our self-knowledge. This only happens partially.

A 2013 study on self-knowledge points out that there are two main barriers that stop us from learning more about ourselves in daily life: the informational and the motivational.

Informational Barriers: Why You Can’t See the Pattern

The root causes created the filter. But even as an adult, specific mechanisms keep you blind to your own interests.

1. The Fish-and-Water Effect

When you do something repeatedly, it stops feeling significant. You become so used to your own behavior that you do not notice it is unusual.

I ran in every city I moved to, but because I had always done it, it felt ordinary. I never thought, “Most people don’t immediately scout running routes when they relocate. This might be important to me.” The pattern was invisible because it felt normal.

2. Missing Comparison Points

You do not know if an interest matters because you do not know what “typical” looks like.

I started four or five blogs over the years. Each time I dismissed it: “Everyone tries blogging, right?” I did not realize that most people start one, lose interest, and never return. I kept coming back to writing but could not see the pattern because I assumed everyone did the same.

3. Feelings Are Louder Than Actions

You focus on how you feel, usually negative, and miss what you actually do.

At university, I was bored most of the time. But during film theory classes, I was completely engaged. I felt the excitement in the moment but focused on the dominant feeling of boredom and missed the signal: “You light up when movies are discussed.”

4. You Can’t See Yourself From Outside

Others notice patterns about you that you cannot see from inside your own experience.

My elementary school teachers kept giving me biology books as rewards. They saw the pattern. But from inside my own life, it was just “stuff that happens,” not a clear message about what I loved.

Motivational Barriers: Why Your Ego Blocks Recognition

Even when information about your interests is available, your ego can make it invisible to protect you from psychological pain. This happens in two main ways.

1. Protecting Your Identity

When you internalize certain values early in life, such as the belief that only specific careers are respectable or worthy, your mind creates a protective filter.

Acknowledging an interest that conflicts with these values means facing an uncomfortable truth: you want something the people who raised you might consider worthless or unacceptable.

That conflict threatens your sense of being good enough.

So your mind protects you by dimming your awareness of those interests. It is not a conscious choice. Your ego simply makes them feel less important, less real, safer to ignore than to face the painful gap between what you genuinely love and what you learned you should want.

In my case, I internalized my parents’ values that only prestigious, well-paid careers mattered. My genuine interests in biology, geography, and writing contradicted this framework. Acknowledging them would have meant admitting I cared about things my mother dismissed as low-status. My ego could not handle that tension, so it made those interests quieter, easier to overlook, psychologically safer to ignore.

2. Dismissing Contradictory Evidence

Once you develop a certain self-concept, such as seeing yourself as someone without clear interests or passions, your mind actively dismisses evidence that contradicts this belief. This happens because confirming your existing identity feels safer than updating it, even when the existing identity is negative.

You might repeatedly return to certain activities, but instead of recognizing the pattern, you focus on the times you stopped or failed. Your ego protects the familiar story about yourself by filtering out information that would force you to revise that story.

I experienced this with writing. I started four or five blogs over the years. Each time I thought, “This time will be different.” When I eventually abandoned each one, I told myself, “See? I am not really a writer. I do not have the discipline.” I focused entirely on the failures, the abandoned blogs, instead of recognizing the obvious pattern: I kept returning to writing. My ego protected the story that I had no real passions by making me ignore clear evidence to the contrary.

The motivational barriers do not appear from nowhere. They develop directly from the root causes. If conditional love taught you that only certain interests were acceptable, your ego learned to filter out everything else. The childhood wound creates the adult blindness.

Conclusion

You Are Not Lost. You Are Looking Past Yourself.

The wrong job, the sense of drifting, the feeling that you have no real interests — none of this happened by accident.

If your childhood taught you that certain parts of yourself were unacceptable, your mind learned to filter them out. The interests were there, showing up again and again across different phases of your life. But you looked past them because acknowledging them meant facing a painful truth: you wanted something your internal system did not allow.

Then those filters kept running on autopilot. The fish-and-water effect made your repeated patterns feel too ordinary to matter. Missing comparison points meant you could not tell what was significant about your own behavior. Your ego protected you from information that threatened your carefully constructed sense of identity.

So you ended up in a job that chose you rather than one you chose, because you literally could not see what you loved clearly enough to pursue it.

But here is what matters: You were not empty. You were made blind.

Your interests were always there. You just learned not to see them, first because your caregivers taught you they did not matter, and then because your own protective mechanisms kept you from noticing them.

Understanding this changes everything. The problem is not that you are lost. The problem is that you have been looking everywhere except at the patterns right in front of you: the things you keep returning to, the activities that make time disappear, the subjects that light you up even when everything else feels dull.

You are not starting from zero. You are uncovering what was always there.

What Comes Next

Understanding why you have been blind to your interests is the first step.

But understanding alone does not make the patterns suddenly visible.

Next week, I will show you exactly how to find these hidden patterns in your own life. I will walk you through my complete interest map, showing you how I finally recognized what had been there all along: the biology books, the repeated blogs, the running in every new city, the atlas I could not stop exploring.

More importantly, I will give you a practical framework for mapping your own interests. You will learn what to look for, which signals matter, and how to distinguish between true interests and things you think you should want.

The patterns are there in your history. You just need to know where to look.

Until then, start paying attention. Notice what you keep returning to even when no one is watching. Notice when time disappears. Notice what you dismiss as “normal” or “everyone does that.” These are your first clues.

The discovery process begins now.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David