The 9th year of confusion, the cycle of fate

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I’ve been quite confused lately; I hope everyone can give me some advice! I graduated from school in 2007 and joined a large state-owned petrochemical company. I hadn’t learned much in college, and I didn’t really understand my field of study. At first I was assigned to an air separation plant; knowing that I was new there, I thought it was better to just focus on doing my job well without worrying about anything else. I worked in that capacity for four or five years, and in 2011 I became a chief operator. At that point I realized that all the technical management positions at the plant level were held by experienced professionals, so there was no chance for me. I worked there for another two or three years before becoming a team leader, and then continued to work in shift roles With the birth of my child, I also wanted to change my working environment. Through an internal competition, I got a position in the company’s production technology department as a scheduler. I held this position for over three years. By the end of 2015, the company’s LNG air separation business started to develop, and since I had previous experience in air separation, my supervisors proposed that I be promoted to engineer. It seemed like my future was clear ahead, but just one year later, in 2016, the state-owned company carried out integrations among its various units, and our company was absorbed by a higher-level company. All the administrative departments were abolished, and I was sent back to the air separation plant where I used to work. All positions had to be re-established, and out of the seven or eight technical management positions that used to exist, only three remained. I once again became a regular operator. In this major “reform,” I had no control over my own destiny. I once had the chance to fight for myself, but I missed it due to my tendency to submit to others’ wills; this is also a weakness of my personality. Moreover, recently the upstream company held an internal recruitment drive; I went for an interview, but they rejected me on the grounds that it wasn’t in the petrochemical sector and that my field of study wasn’t relevant. After I introduced myself, they simply turned me down, leaving me even more confused. I haven’t been in this factory for over four years now; it feels familiar yet at the same time strange. There are many valves that I have operated before, but I’ve forgotten about many of them as well. I wonder if this is ironic. Of course, I’ve also thought about breaking away from this circle, but after trying to get interviews outside a couple of times, I faced rejection, which made me a bit timid! I still go to work every day, and when I see those things I used to operate, I wonder if it’s really necessary for me to pick them up again Or should I go on? Or wait for two years to improve my skills and get a certificate first? Or should I switch careers and find another path? I have a question that has been bothering me as I approach ten years of working – please help me come up with some ideas!