I decided to move to the next chapter of my life, to move on from what I thought was a field of sinking quicksand — one that would trap me into a sense of unhappiness and restlessness the longer I stayed.
And I decided on this so quickly.
But it turns out crossing the river when you're much older is not as easy as when you are early on in your career. And I'm not talking about this in the sense of physical capacity or stamina.
Life is just more... complicated, it seems.
Earlier in my life, I left my first job around twelve months in — and the choice was simpler and more straightforward.
Not because I was smarter or bolder than I am now, but because I knew less. I was too junior to matter — no one cared if I left. And that made it simpler because I had less to really figure out, all I had to do was move forward, on to the next step.
The only optimization function was growth, or opportunity.
But now it's a bit different, you see — I move on from restlessness into uncertainty. The road ahead gets less concrete, less certain — there isn't a bridge anymore to the other side. There are many — each one, for some reason, pointing me toward a different version of my life, with a set of important questions... including:
Where would my life be in five years?
How would my health and the rest of my capacity for joy look?
What would my life stand for?
What does moving on say about me, what I'm leaving behind, and what I'm drawn to?
Will there be regrets?
Uncertainty and fear certainly abound.
But it's because the calculus of my river crossing was done a bit differently.
I did not leave to move toward the next step on a ladder, but rather, to actively decide that the version and trajectory of my life today is not the one I'd be proud of — and staying longer would not give me the answers I want to the five questions I posed.
So I left not toward something I want, but away from something I don't want.
And that blank slate gets a bit scarier when you're in the middle of your career.
Do all wanderers and adventurers fear such a river crossing?
I started tracing the entirety of my life, thinking maybe I wouldn't be in this situation had I chosen differently years ago — if I'd simply shifted a few decisions.
I could have been in the US, facing such forks in the path, rather than in the Philippines — I'm choosing with a limited set of decisions because of earlier bets I made to be back in the region.
Had I made the wrong choice?
But there's no use in asking that anymore.
Where does the fear come from, honestly?
That people would see inconsistencies in some career narratives or transitions, or that I couldn't articulate neatly what my life stands for? Would it lead to a life of shame and regret?
But where do those fears really stem from, and why would I want to answer these questions? They don't seem like questions I need to answer, they don't seem like questions that would help me — rather it is only for what people see as a sketched, summarized version of me.
Choices in our own self-image need not weigh us so deeply. It only constrains the freedom we have and turns it into a burden.
All I can really do is see myself as having the privilege — that I have the capacity to wipe the board clean. And with that comes a gift, to write out multiple versions and pathways of myself — each one more exciting and bolder than the last — with that comes the freedom to choose many crossings.
Because why not? Who has affixed this mindset that we need to cross the river by laying down one step at a time, or by crossing bridges that exist?
I can make a bridge, or hop over, or swim back if I wanted to. And when we remove the notion there is only one way forward — we realize how free we can be.