Finding the right day job

The percentage of fiction writers who can actually make a living at writing is pretty small, I'd guess less than five percent. So I have no illusions/delusions that I will someday make my living writing YA novels.

For me that means that I must have a day job. I currently work full-time as a writer/editor/webmaster at a university research center. It's a pretty good job. I have the best possible boss someone like me could have. The compensation and benefits are good.

So what's the problem? For one thing, the subject of the center's research is dry. I have no interest in it whatsoever, but generally I've been able to ignore this and do a good job anyway.

Lately, however, the issue of whether my work even matters has popped up. I don't really help people. I push words around, organize information, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm good at it, but I could stop doing it tomorrow and I wouldn't miss it.

For years I thought I just needed to work in a different location on a different topic. This drove a sort of neverending job search.

But finally I realized that if my work doesn't matter to me anymore, perhaps I need to do something else.

Unfortunately I'm not one of those people who can work at something she doesn't care about and go home and write, write, write.

The not caring really wears me down. I feel like I'm wasting my time and my employer's time.

I want to know what it's like to care about my work, to be invested in it, to make a difference in someone's life.

Is that asking too much?

I'm acting on the premise that it's not.