Lady Wood

I had gotten to a point in my life where I had done everything I thought I was supposed to. I studied, worked hard, got to the position I thought I wanted and made the money I thought I needed to be satisfied. The first few years were fantastic but then, like a slow-moving creek picking up momentum as it approaches a waterfall, I started noticing little by little, a shift in myself. I had spent the last decade getting here and now I’m unhappy? I tried everything to convince myself that this is just life, and everyone feels this way about work. I thought “how many people love their jobs?”,  and that I should consider myself lucky. 

When I finally admitted to myself that despite all the effort it took to get here, it wasn’t a place I could continue to stay.  I just wasn’t willing to give any more time chasing a bad ante. It was incredibly deconstructing to come to terms with having worked so hard to get somewhere only to find out it wasn’t where I needed to be to feel complete. I had tied a great deal of my identity to my career and the field I had specialized in, and for what? To be another cog?, to collect my pay and die? No, it was worse, it was to help make shareholders wealthy.  I was often told I was too passionate, too opinionated, took too big a swing, spoke too directly, and had too bold of an idea. “The company isn’t ready for that”, was something I heard often.