After years of corporate monotony as a database specialist in Northern Virginia, Marisa VanDyke was ravenous for excitement. Every day was the same: wake up, go to work, eat dinner, go to the gym, go to bed. To prompt destiny, she threw a dart at a map and suddenly had something to look forward to. She told her bosses she was quitting. They didn't understand why she'd give up good pay. It was tough to tell her parents, who were happy with her stability. But VanDyke simply stepped off the first rungs of the corporate ladder.

She chucked the idea of Montana and instead drove well beyond there — to Cooper Landing, Alaska, to be a waitress. No health insurance, no safety net, nothing. Then a friend tipped her off to a job in Antarctica.  Why not?

She applied. She got it. The woman who had spent her post-college years in a cubicle was now slinging from one planetary pole to the next. “The first day I got there, the plane lands on an ice runway,'' says VanDyke, 27. “You get off and look around, and there's nothing for miles. It was negative-80 degrees with the windchill, and my first thought was, ‘Oh, (bleep).’ “

People start over. It feels right. It feels exhilarating and stupid and like the beginning of something great, moving from one place to another, geographically and psychologically. From enervation to ecstasy.

“I think that not knowing is the best way to do everything,” VanDyke says. “There's no point in researching it ahead of time and trying to figure out everything. It's more fun to go and experience it. And now I'm not afraid.

I'll go anywhere and do anything. And I will make it work, because what else can you do?''

First step

The first step — and continuing to take those steps — is what's important, says Robert Quinn, author of ‘Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within’ and a business professor at the University of Michigan. “When you go through deep change, it doesn't matter if you're wrong,” Quinn says. “It matters that you're moving.''

“People will go to great lengths to deny that the external world is changing and needs something else from us,” Quinn says. “We will just stay in the pattern we've traditionally succeeded at. If we do that when the world is calling for something else, there's usually a breaking point where we can't function anymore, and then we're forced into some form of that deep change.

There's great exhilaration in the new identity that starts to form, a greater alignment with the environment you're in. You expand your consciousness, your awareness and your capacity. That's always very exhilarating.''

Starting over

There are no official statistics on Starting Over. But the seeds of existential antsiness are apparent when you look at the job satisfaction numbers, which have corroded over the past 20 years.  People change careers every three years on average, says Sarah Edwards, a licensed clinical social worker in California who, with her husband, Paul, co-authored ‘Changing Directions Without Losing Your Way’ and ‘Finding Your Perfect Work.’

There's an explanation for this rampant feeling of something's-not-right. In early life, people fall into two paths, Edwards says. We either follow the career route prescribed by our academic experience or we follow the example or guidance of our parents.

Something’s not right

“At the time, we're so pleased to have opportunities, so we step into things,'' she says. “When you're in your 20s, you're very excited about life and you want to get hooked up somewhere.

And once you're there, you start saying, ‘Wait . ...’ As we move on into our 30s or 40s, we start to question.

`How did I get here? Is this where I decided to go?'  `What am I doing?' ''

In work, several elements foster contentment, says Jessica Schairer, a clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles: feeling proud of what you're doing, having your co-workers and employers like and respect you, and using talents that come naturally to you. Satisfaction is compromised if any of these are missing, but it may not be cause for a total life change. “Do I need a total change of scene, or do I just need a vacation?'' offers Schairer.

“Do I need to change my whole entire career, or do I just need to change the company? Many times, people think the whole industry they're working in is terrible, but it's not. Sometimes you don't have to change your career; you just have to change your company.''

It comes down to this: What do you want more of, and what do you want less of?