works of wanderlust

Tag: career shift

  • pool blues

    Fate has kicked me in the gut once again.

    At the risk of evoking a critical level of pity and having that backfire at me in the second paragraph of this essay, I’m going to mention a sad little easily-solved problem that unfortunately knocked me low again this week: they are closing the pool where I’ve been swimming for “three months of critical maintenance.”

    “They aren’t doing it to you personally!” My wife rolled her eyes at me when I showed her the notice.

    “Maybe not, but the universe seems to have it in for me lately.” I replied.

    I’ve been a swimmer for years, but after a year-long hiatus I broke down and spent money on an annual pass to the local pool with the intention of getting back into my routine. I just bought the pass three weeks ago. According to the email, in a mere week’s time the pool will be closing for three whole months. The next nearest pool is a twenty minute drive from my house, and the activation energy that gets me from prone on the couch to jumping into a swim lane with my goggles strapped over my face does not seem strong enough to include a commute. One more barrier, my brain is telling me. One more kick in the gut by my friend fate. 

    Sigh. 

    I’m whining. I know that. But damned if the universe doesn’t seem like it’s decided to pick on me personally as of late. Objectively speaking millions of people might have it orders of magnitude worse, but personal struggle is both subjective and relative isn’t it?

    I was told that when I set out to make a life change, to upend everything I had built over the years in my career—in search of something more interesting, more satisfying, more purposeful—that by the end of it I would have experienced a range of emotions from high to low, buffeted by self-doubt, refined in crystal clarity, and everything in between all at once. I shrugged off the notion, not because I didn’t believe the prediction but because I figured I could roll with it, whatever came my way, all of it. 

    A voyage across an ocean without a map is an apt metaphor. Each day at sea is a little different—maybe closer to shore, maybe not. A storm may roil one day or the sun may beat down on another. Little things make all the difference in the world, and having my swimming pool closed for a few months felt like a man adrift at sea who had just watched his favourite hat fly into the yonder on a gust of wind. No the wind didn’t do it to him personally, but it is tough not to feel that way—for a little bit. 

  • essays in downshift

    Of all the things I could be writing here, what I should be writing more of is words on the process of shifting careers.

    I’m practically overflowing with experience in that lately. *sigh*

    It’s funny, actually. I am sitting here in the sun of a cafe patio sipping my morning coffee and staring blankly at a keyboard. I was trying to prompt myself into writing something meaningful because the last twenty four hours has been something of a crest of yet another existential crisis dealing with parenting transitions and a funeral and a hundred other little quirks of reality. I was trying to write something meaningful because it feels like a day for meaningful things. Instead, I was reading through my old writings.

    Twenty-three months ago I quit my government job. About once a month now I seriously look at that decision and wonder if it was the right one—then quickly remind myself to read back through my letters to myself or catch a glimpse of the beurocratic trenches that burned me out and remember that quitting was the good decision. The tough decision. But the right decision.

    Existential crisis stand by.

    My old writings are in themselves grounding. If you ever decide to shift careers, or just quit a toxic career and look for a better reality I have only one piece of advice: journal the fuck out of that thing.

    A month. A year. A decade. However long it takes to shift. Just write and write and write. Keep track of the ups and downs. Plot the moments. Grasp the emotional state of each moment and put it into words.

    And then… go back and read it on occasion.

    Two years feels like forever and simultaneously feels like a blink of the eyes. That sounds incredibly cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason, right?

    My journey over the last two years has been one of a hundred different mental states, from sinking into the depths of desperate projects to flying on the wings of new prospects. I don’t need to inventory here everything that I have dabbled in this past stretch of time, hobbies and habits, meditation and milage, part time work and unpaid pondering, and heck knows that if you told me that I’d be writing something like these words and staring down the metaphorical gate leading into year three of this process I may have reconsidered the whole damn thing, but then that’s why the words have been so important. That’s where the writing has grounded the ride.

    Want some tips? Here are five starting points for reflective journalling:

    1. Write yourself a letter describing your day. Date it. Be blunt. Why do you feel the way you feel right now, what’s driving you up the walls, how are you coping and how does it make you want to react?

    2. Write your backstory. Pick a logical point in time and explain like you were writing a memoir how you got from that point to now. Maybe you explain the course of your education. Maybe you lay out the path of your employment history. Maybe you detail the people and conversations that led you here. I dunno. But you do.

    3. Layout the events of the week. Do it narrative style. You are allowed to be the main character for a few minutes. Like, look back on the last seven days and explain how you spent them, the highs and lows, the blahs, the conversations that made your day or had you tugging your hair out by the roots.

    4. Explain where you think you are going. No one really knows for sure. We’re all making this shit up as we go, to be honest. But unless you’re sitting perfectly still you’re heading in some direction and you must have a destination. What do you expect to find there.

    5. Admit a misconception. None of us are perfect. We make assumptions and misunderstand things all the time. Own up to yourself in your journal. Write what you got wrong, why you thought one way when it was actually another, and call out the moment.

    Existential crisis be damned.