006: some answers after 3 months of questioning
on figuring out what I want to do next
Good morning! As I continue to feel out the new direction for this newsletter, you’ll see that I’ve gone back to Substack (sorry for the whiplash). I’d especially appreciate any feedback you have (re: content, newsletter titles/email subject lines, graphics, etc.) to make this newsletter deserve your weekly click. Case in point: I recently changed the title of my newsletter because my sister told me the old one sounded too generic.
Today’s issue is brought to you while suffering silently in a WeWork (this is not a sponsored ad): I had too-spicy Thai leftovers for lunch and am trying my best to hide my tears as I try to find something, anything to save me from the spice. My only options are kombucha and cold brew, so I guzzle both to no aid. Worst of all, random people have been coming over to the table I’ve chosen to isolate myself at to tell me Lychee is so cute, only to back away in shock and apologize when they see how not okay I look.
Written while drinking Marin Kombucha Co.’s Melon Rose—one of my favorite kombuchas since the taste isn’t too sweet or overly vinegary.
“I... should probably start looking for a job,” I said one morning to nobody in particular. It was a confession that felt like a concession, yet strangely enough, I didn’t feel defeated.
A multitude of reasons and emotions fueled the decision. The most obvious was my financial need. I knew in my head it was a privilege to quit my job and live off savings for a period. However, I also wanted to believe I’d be ✨ special ✨—like the owners of L’Appartement 4F who seemingly so casually quit the corporate life to bring their French bakery vision to the world and now make $120K/month. I wanted that grandiose life mission that would carry me through the next chapter of my life, to discover a passion in selling houses or restauranteuring or even TikTok influencing. Anything that could give me some sense of choice and control instead of resigning to the path of least resistance in a career. If not that, then at least find something so interesting that I’d even consider drinking Soylent so that I could do more of it. I don’t think I’d found that yet, but I was also recovered, bored, and itching to be productive again.
Early in my sabbatical, a friend asked me (as I listed out activities I wanted to try) what my “failure modes” would be at the end of the period. (Can you tell this friend works in tech?) That’s easy, I thought. I’ll have failed if I don’t launch my food blog. I’ll have failed if I haven’t learned from my experiences and go into the same situation again. Sometimes I wonder if I should have finished that exercise of identifying all the failure modes. By strict parameters, I’d already succeeded in my sabbatical by now, yet I felt lame accepting a win that was more from having a short list of goals than sustained accountability and productivity.
Still, another part of me likes to think I never finished the exercise because I bristled at the question, rebelling against its premise that success or failure is a binary state. To think so black and white is easy, but lazy. It allows us to easily reject ourselves when discouraged, to buy into the myth that a concept like failure exists in real life when it’s really just a benchmarking construct introduced in artificial environments like schools or business projects.
I still want to experience that moment where you just know you’ve found The Thing™—similar to how my friend Laura knows she’s a dancer or how James knows he’s a startup builder. However, I’ve experimented with many options and paths in the past few months and have yet to reach an epiphany. Salty, I laughed to myself as I spiraled. Does this just mean I don’t have a personality if I don’t have strong preferences one way or another? Am I depressed again? Is this a result of growing up as a people pleaser? Is adulthood just an endless to-do list without direction?