Losing a job is liberating

And just like that, the certainty of $200K for this year was gone. And maybe the certainty was never there, but the income was there until it wasn’t.

I started a new job in August 2022. In recent years I’ve struggled a lot with all things corporate, but last summer, I came across a great opportunity, and it all worked out. Well, kind of. I started as a consultant. The plan was to transition to a full-time job in a few months.

It started well, and I worked hard. After a few months, the momentum started to fade. It’s hard to tell all the details, and I don’t want to. I absolutely don’t want to cast a shadow on the company that I worked for. I did start having some doubts about the job once the momentum faded, but it’s hard to establish causality. A few things went wrong, and it didn’t help that I worked remotely.

From being super enthusiastic in the initial months to knowing unmistakably in recent weeks — this is going badly.

Today I had a catch-up call with my boss, the founder of the company. My contract was not being extended.

My career has so many scars that this additional one will barely stand out. Mid-career struggles are real. It doesn't help that my past entrepreneurial endeavors were failures. They also left scars.

It’s still painful. I had hopes and expectations. Then they faded, as I mentioned. With four kids and other close relatives to support, I’m fragile financially. I have been for years.

Yet, there was something incredibly liberating about being let go. Recently this particular job became a burden. I was also a burden to others, probably. If this termination happened a few months ago, I’d be close to depression. But that “fading”, that loss of momentum, in recent months helped. If I were to draw an analogy, this breakup comes at a low point in the relationship.

Now a reset. I’ve had these resets before. Once or twice they led to major positive changes in life. More often, though, there was no reset. There were problems and uncertainty. You get stuck in a difficult situation for a long time. You’re weak.

I do, however, feel I have many new interesting opportunities, the ones I’m excited about, the ones I control. Well, the control is never total, but I’m relatively in charge. They are very different from anything I’ve done before.

Let’s see.

This picture is from one of my runs in Arizona a couple of months ago. It was a lovely trail. Cacti on the one side and a pack of coyotes on the other (you can’t see them in this picture, but I saw them several times!)

And this very catchy song by Miley Cyrus comes to mind:

… I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours
Say things you don’t understand
I can take myself dancing
And I can hold my own hand
Yeah, I can love me better than you can

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