Re-Reading Anna Karenina During a Pandemic

I went back to Anna Karenina during lunch today. As it so happens, during this pandemic I've gained a lot of time to think--a blessing and a curse, because are some things I don't really want to think about (in particular, my future and how I can influence it).

Levin, in Anna Karenina, is my least favorite character; I've always found him annoying. But after reading that article yesterday again that framed Levin's incessant ponderations on his purpose in life in relation to Anna Karenina's on her happiness... I probably and unfortunately have a lot in common with him. I, too, have spent a lot of time (not recently) thinking about whether or not I'm doing the right thing and if I am making decisions that maximize my personal happiness. I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I decide whether or not to go to business school this coming year (should I act within the confines of tradition and take a somewhat predictable route, or take a risk). And I think this way whenever a job opportunity out-of-state arises. I don't regret the jobs I've turned down, but I don't know what to do now.

I also feel immense guilt, especially now and occasionally, at how lucky I am. I spent 2017-18 trying to find consistent volunteer opportunities in Dallas, to feel like I was giving back to my community. But nothing I ever did felt meaningful enough. It just felt like a marginal effort. And then I spent the first half of 2019 applying to CSR roles and finance roles at non-profits, and anything that materialized didn't feel like the right fit, either.

Levin, too, had this guilt:

...he had always felt the injustice of his superfluities compared with the peasant's poverty, and now decided, in order to feel himself quite justified, that though he had always worked hard and lived simply, he would in future work still more and allow himself still less luxury. And it all seemed to him so easy to carry out that he was in a pleasant reverie the whole way home, and it was with cheerful hopes for a new and better life that he reached his house toward nine o'clock in the evening.
When he [arrived home] he was overcome by a momentary doubt of the possibility of starting the new life of which he had been dreaming on his way. All of these traces of his old life seemed to seize hold of him and say, 'No, you will not escape us and will not be different, but will remain such as you have been: full of doubts, full of dissatisfaction with yourself, and of vain attempts at improvement followed by failures, and continual hopes of the happiness which has escaped you and is impossible for you.

Part I Chapter XXVI

I don't remember where I read this but I remember reading that our decisions in life are based on fear. And I think you can say that I've made nearly all of my major decisions based on a fear of unhappiness, when it really is a personal choice. If I don't go to INSEAD this year, I would indeed be doing it out of fear.

'What were you thinking about?'
'Always about the same thing,'...
[Anna] spoke the truth. Whenever,--at whatever moment--she was asked what she was thinking about she could have answered without fail, 'Always about my happiness and my unhappiness.' Just now when he entered she was wondering why, for others, Betsy for instance (of whose secret relations with Tushkevich she knew) it was all easy, while for her it was so tormenting. 

Part II, Chapter XXII

Granted, there aren't many people like me (I don't mean character-wise at all, but demographically and professionally), so I don't know many people who face the same tormenting choices (and they are tormenting). I feel that if I had an example to follow I would feel more relaxed.

I'm very religious so, unlike Levin, I don't really struggle with my purpose in life--more so with how to spend my time.

...on the contrary, being now on the one hand disenchanted by the ill-success of his former occupations for the general welfare, and on the other hand too much occupied with his own thoughts and by the mass of affairs that overwhelmed him from all sides, he quite abandoned all calculation of public utility, and these matters interested him only because it seemed to him that he had to do what he was doing, and could not act otherwise.
Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary, and the activity itself, which at first seemed so great, ever lessened and lessened till it vanished. But now since his marriage, when he began to confine himself more and more to living for himself, through he no longer felt and joy at the thought of his activity, he felt confident that his work was necessary, saw that it progressed far better than formerly, and that it was always growing more and more.
...
Whether he was acting well or ill he did not know, and far from laying down the law about it, he now avoided talking or thinking about it.
Thinking about it led him into doubts and prevented him from seeing what he should and should not do. But when he did not think, but just lived, he unceasingly felt in his soul the presence of an infallible judge deciding which of two possible actions was the better and which the worse; and as soon as he did what he should not have done, he immediately felt this. 

Part VIII Chapter X

I wonder if I might be finally at peace if I stop trying to decide if what I'm doing is right or going to keep me from unhappiness, and embrace a selfish purpose. How much of our lives (or just mine, really) are ruled by circumstance, and how much can I control? Is there even a point in thinking about it? When can I go back to not thinking about these things?