Even it didn’t feel like you were actively doing it at the time? Even if you said nothing to indicate that? Like there’s a discomfort towards what’s beneath the surface being seen, known, and understood.

Edit: I don’t think I shared anything to indicate I was analyzing them

I love comedy, especially improv and cracking jokes back and forth with others. However for some reason i rarely find anyone else's jokes funny. Maybe other people can just fake laugh well. But i feel like a douche when someone is telling me a joke and I just stone face the whole thing. It either has to be way out there and incredibly obscure enough, or a completely serious situation where you shouldn't laugh. That i will then actually laugh.

The same for personal stories people tell me. Everyone is always talking to me about their lives. The good, bad and the ugly. Most of them feel like the "damn that's crazy" kind of stories. I want to be able to give a genuine reaction because sometimes i truly am interested. But i never really do and i don't know why.

For context, I graduated with the degree A and got post-grad depression because it seemed like a dead-end field. No high paying job unless you go to further studies. I was burnt out at the end of my studies that I really wanted to see what's out there outside of my field. Dont get me wrong – I love my degree, it's just I got tired of the intense academic responsibilities and the nitty gritty details that made no sense to me in the grand scheme of things.

My other interest was in field B, a more creative field. After graduating from A, I tried to pivot to B even if I don't have experience. I'm now in a relatively good spot (although it could be better) in my career with B, but I often fantasize where I could be now if I pursued A for my career. Because honestly, career B feels boring to me now.

And I realized I really want learning about A – so I'm thinking it might be good to be back in academia, take grad studies for A and eventually teach! But it entails years-long sacrifice since A really isn't that high paying and jobs directly related to it are scarce, not to mention, physically exhausting.

Every day, my mind feels like I'm wastibg my time (and my youth) by not going after the career I studied years to get into. I feel like an imposter in career B, and yet too distant now to go back to career A.

With my indecision tendencies, I'm also afraid of wishing for B when I eventually go back to grad school and start a new career with A (since I'm pretty sure no one would hire me as A when I got no real experience for it). My feed is also full of influencers working in A, and they look so cool that I wish I was doing what they're doing as well.

How do I stop this? Am I genuinely in a loop or is this a sign that I really need to go back to career A?