Thread by @KrisAbdelmessih

Hold on to this terrific observation by Visa for a sec...

First, background:

I hit a reset button in 2021 leaving a great job once I was sure I didn't want to keep doing it for say another decade. I also write a lot of personal stuff online. Where am I going with this...

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1749291193689935896

It turns out that having a good career but feeling antsy about it mid-life is very common. You should see how many people reach out wanting to chat about transitions (btw @khemaridh & @p_millerd have really done great work on decision-making and framing the underlying dynamics)

I haven't really studied stuff like our relationship with work and all that so I can just offer a bit I have shared that I came to both by experience and observation...

Transitions are hard especially if you don't know the object level "job" you are transitioning to

All the expected difficulties (what's your identity, sucks to be making little $) apply. Real af.

But as the person in the thick of it I am confident that moving more towards where I find flow as a matter of what I enjoy but also am capable of adding value feels right...

even when I haven't found adequate sustainability (earning). But that feeling sucks even if it feels right because "unsustainable forever" is wrong while "unsustainable as an investment in finding the right match of me to work" is necessary once I decided to go off W2 autopilot

There's a voice that tempts to take away the uncertainty -- "you can go back to having a job"

Of course I'd just be swapping one pain for another bc despite all the great features of the job personally I didn't want it anymore.

But one thing that comforts me is something very similar to what Visa points out --

When you read a biography or hear a person's story there's gaps. This person did X and 5 years later they did Y. In biography form we don't bat an eye. But that person lived those 5 years.

It wasn't a blink for them. They tangled with everything and just because the tangling wasn't legible in a tidy title doesn't mean this years were insignificant. Hell, they might be the prereqs. Maybe they're just periods of rest. My first year was like that.

But I'm an immigrants kid. I'm not free of the scripts at all. But I reframe them lest the self-doubt keeps me from hunting down my match. Because the biggest win will be coming out of this with true self-determination.

The game, the challenge is to get where I want to be while being who I want to be. That's all it is. I could have gotten financially to where I wanted to be with the job but I wasn't enjoying the path anymore. It felt low stakes as far as what it meant to my identity.

My last few years of p/l at the job were my best and yet I felt nothing. That told me a lot. (actually it confirmed something I started feeling years earlier).

Anyway, this could be cope. I wouldn't sell that prop down to zero, but my bet is on the "work" biography...

These years that don't leave receipts will very much be ones that I remember. Self-doubt and all.

(No way comparing myself to Arnold or anyone. Just hard to deny that our internal representation of our lives is like a personal movie...

I'd get up and go to the bathroom at this part.

Again just talking work bio. Life outside the achievement bucket is easy when you have a elementary age kids that still wanna play with you)