This was such a breath of fresh air. After 25 years in marketing tech, I was let go unexpectedly in March. I'd lost my mother a year before and my only sister, 3 months prior. I was so mired in that triple whammy of grief, I was paralyzed and unsure of what to do next. I only knew this for certain: I could not return to Corporate America in the same way I'd known it for most of my working life. It's still difficult for me to say "I'm finishing my memoir" when people ask what I'm doing. It feels so... mushy... compared to the work I used to do. And yet, it's the work I was meant to do. Freelance gigs here and there are keeping my financially afloat, and writing is keeping me alive. Literally. It's a beautiful place to be. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Oh Katrina, what an onslaught. I'm not surprised your very foundations were shaken. For what it's worth, I think there is no more worthwhile thing to be doing than finishing your memoir. Congratulations on finding your writing self.
"It wasn’t until I finally came up for air, a year or so after The Pool went down, that the truth dawned on me. Far from spending the previous seven years building a new identity, or even attempting to unearth the one long buried under designer bags and performance reviews, I’d been trying to resurrect the old one. Rebuilding a life that was all about meetings and spreadsheets and four hour daily commutes and endlessly worrying about other people’s expectations. Ironically, all things I’d been trying to escape when I’d left magazines. I’d just gone right ahead and recreated them. Every last one." This is so honest and insightful. I find it very helpful. I left a large organisation last year and you have very eloquently reminded me of the dangers of trying to recreate the "busyness" I felt (and didn't like, except when I did). Thank you.
I left my teaching job, which I realized had completely consumed my life, and I had left little of me left. I can completely relate to the painful feelings you express here at your decision. I have never regretted my change of direction and just wish I had woken up earlier! I love your podcast and I am very glad you made that shift.
Thanks so much Deborah. I think I just wish I had realised sooner. That I knew I was doing it rather than living it if that makes sense. My cousin is a teacher and has recently done the same thing. Mashed up by the system.
Sam and Deborah, thanks to both of you for your article, Sam and your comments, Deborah. Both have really resonated with me.. I was a teacher who took a promotion in a ‘no excuses/zero tolerance’ multi academy trust. Lasted 6 months - couldn’t bear another minute of the ridiculousness of it all- before I left. My ‘workquake’ or ‘life quake’ (leaving a job when I hadn’t another to go to) coincided with perimenopause but ten years on from that, I now see that it was no coincidence. What was happening within me physically and emotionally allowed me to see things (and myself) in a way I might not have if I were younger and not perimenopausal.
It’s taken ten years for me to pick through and make sense of it all, and my identity is no longer determined by my job. I now help children succeed in the education system, rather than push them through it, hellbent on results (theirs and mine). It was a massive and wholly necessary ‘shift’. Thank you for encouraging this discussion, Sam.
Love this piece! Actually wrote in my journal last night, “my job does not define me.” So right on time. I feel lucky my generation is starting to make that distinction and shift but your words are very poignant. Thank you for sharing!
I've been going through this for allllllllll of 2023. First, I quit my job mid-semester as a university instructor because I didn't think I could cope with angry students and plagiarism and AI and checked out administrators for one more second. Then, I got hired into a Fancy New Marketing Exec Position... and got fired five months later. Instead of taking a beat, I threw myself into learning web design and creating a branding studio and applying for jobs and on and on and on. I really thought the answer was to push through and that if I stopped for even a moment, I'd fall apart. And then I did fall apart-- and found myself hospitalized and getting a hysterectomy at 32. It's only through *that* experience that I have started to come to terms with how divorced I had become from my sense of self. I'm slowly trying to piece together who I am... or who I could be.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this! It feels comforting to know that I'm not the only person who has gone through it, and I'm grateful for your vulnerability.
Wow, I truly loved reading this, and relate a lot. This time last year I left a job and and industry where I'd spent 10 years climbing the career ladder, only to get to the top and discover it was filled with burnout and unhappiness. Until I made that discovery, I was so deeply passionate about my work that it was my entire personality. I didn't have hobbies, the only friends I had were people who worked for the same company, and all of my time was spent at work, or checking my work emails. By the time I left I was incredibly unwell. I've found the last 12 months harder than I care to admit. I've found little parts of myself again along the way, and am rebuilding the person and character I want to be. In fact, Substack is helping me to do that by getting my writing online, a true passion that I've never taken further than my notepads. Reading that it has taken you a long time to find yourself again is comforting, I have been so hard on myself for not JUMPING head first into the next obsession but actually I'm now realising I just need to live. Live a life that fulfils me, as me. My job or career does not define me. Thank you so much for writing this piece!
Thank you - and thank you for sharing this. It sounds so familiar. I beat myself up constantly along the way - and if I’m completely honest - still do sometimes. It’s such a hard Gabor to break after years/decades on the treadmill.
At age 48, I'm going through (another) such reckoning right now. And wrestling with the: "You failure. What's WRONG with you?" voices. All to say, thank you for writing this.
Felt this on a visceral level, Sam. I wonder whether we have the capacity to learn it sooner? Maybe it's something that surfaces predominantly in one's 40's and 50's...I don't know. It's just that it seems that's the time many of us experience it. Do we have to go through life first to truly understand who we are and what our identity is? I'm pondering...
I think so much of what you say is true. J has just pointed out all the things I missed out of this piece - the rage (so much rage), the ptsd etc etc (obv you know all this bc it’s in the book), but I do agree that ultimately I don’t think I could have reached this point sooner bc I lacked the self awareness (and tbh had no interest in finding it…)
It’s the law of life. There’s a couple of young women I know - late teens, early 20’s - in car crashes of relationships. Gaslighting, the full works. It’s so obvious to me what they need to do but they’ve got to reach that themselves, and - sadly - go through the pain before the realisation. First the pain, then the rising as Glennon Doyle says. I wish there was another way for us all!
I had a growing sense of unease with my communications career for about 10 years until the pandemic - which fell when I was pregnant with my second child. I had the space to think - albeit not any sleep - and realised I just didn’t want to go back. So I did a horticulture diploma and worked part time as a gardener. I’m now part time head gardener at a restaurant and do a bit of freelance garden writing. I’ve just got a brilliant new mentor and next year my daughter starts school so I will actually start to earn money rather than just breaking even on childcare. I’ve doubted myself a lot. But I’m so glad I did this! Thanks for sharing your story - I loved the Pool, by the way!
RED was among the magazines I admired in 10 years at the helm of Canada’s leading women’s magazine. I too stepped down voluntarily with my mission fulfilled, before anyone could murmur, “She’s lost her touch.” Without the job that defined and obsessed me, I no longer knew who I was. I missed the up-and-comers I mentored and the readers who had come to know me through my monthly editorial. I wrote my first book but one book is not an identity. Everyone told me then transition would take three years. For 10 years I flailed and kvetched, wondering what was wrong with me. Then my husband talked me into rescuing a dog who got me out of my head and into the world. I wrote a book, STARTER DOG, about the new life we made together, and now here I am, a newcomer to Substack, trying not to dwell on the subscriber counts and open rate that are so reminiscent of magazine land. Thank you for telling the complicated truth about leaving a job you have loved. I’ll be back.
I think we have walked a similar path. And I totally hear you about the numbers. After decades of standing or falling based on one issues sales, it’s tough not to judge yourself on comments, clicks etc. x
As someone in the midst of a midlife meltdown down and identity crisis - this was super helpful read. So much to learn from you and your experience. Thanks for so generously sharing. Always been a fan!
Oh god, I see so much of myself in this, snd even though I was made redundant rather than resigned from my dream job (damn you, pandemic!). ‘I’ve stopped running, or even walking away from anything. I’ve finally learnt that it’s what you’re walking towards that matters’ - bingo
It is almost eight years since I was fired from my dream job, four days before turning 50! In these eight years I was rehired by the same people who fired me (with half my salary and in a lower position), I could move to an even better job than the one I had, but it wasn’t my “dream job”, I wasn’t happy. Last year I resigned and moved to Paris, in order to write and read (the cliché of a wanna be writer I supposed) I still couldn’t figure out what I want to do or where I want to be. But, I am definitely happy to be part of the Substack community. It is a great place to express oneself and to find incredible interesting people.
Rehired on half the salary in a lower position... did you work in media? Or do all industries do that to older staff? I think we're all so trained to have to be something, it can take a while to realise we don't. And so agree about Substack. Love it here.
Apparently it is common not only in media! I was Senior Legislative Advisor at the National Senate of Argentina. I am a Lawyer and Bioethicist, and at the moment of my dismissal I was the Coordinator of the Parliamentary Human Rights Observatory, an area I helped to create. I didn’t see it coming and I was completely devastated. I remember telling my daughter: I was the Bioethicist who drafts Law, now Who am I? I lost all sense of identity and belonging; and I think as a kind of resistance, I decided to write in English from that moment.
The answer is: definitely not! I was a single female professional in a place of power, and paradoxically that put me in a place of great vulnerability.
This was such a breath of fresh air. After 25 years in marketing tech, I was let go unexpectedly in March. I'd lost my mother a year before and my only sister, 3 months prior. I was so mired in that triple whammy of grief, I was paralyzed and unsure of what to do next. I only knew this for certain: I could not return to Corporate America in the same way I'd known it for most of my working life. It's still difficult for me to say "I'm finishing my memoir" when people ask what I'm doing. It feels so... mushy... compared to the work I used to do. And yet, it's the work I was meant to do. Freelance gigs here and there are keeping my financially afloat, and writing is keeping me alive. Literally. It's a beautiful place to be. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Oh Katrina, what an onslaught. I'm not surprised your very foundations were shaken. For what it's worth, I think there is no more worthwhile thing to be doing than finishing your memoir. Congratulations on finding your writing self.
Thank you so much, Sam. I'm so happy to be here in the presence of so many amazing writers. It's where I am supposed to be. <3
"It wasn’t until I finally came up for air, a year or so after The Pool went down, that the truth dawned on me. Far from spending the previous seven years building a new identity, or even attempting to unearth the one long buried under designer bags and performance reviews, I’d been trying to resurrect the old one. Rebuilding a life that was all about meetings and spreadsheets and four hour daily commutes and endlessly worrying about other people’s expectations. Ironically, all things I’d been trying to escape when I’d left magazines. I’d just gone right ahead and recreated them. Every last one." This is so honest and insightful. I find it very helpful. I left a large organisation last year and you have very eloquently reminded me of the dangers of trying to recreate the "busyness" I felt (and didn't like, except when I did). Thank you.
I think it’s addictive. I needed that “busyness”, to feel important. But of course I wasn’t important at all. Good luck with your new trajectory
I left my teaching job, which I realized had completely consumed my life, and I had left little of me left. I can completely relate to the painful feelings you express here at your decision. I have never regretted my change of direction and just wish I had woken up earlier! I love your podcast and I am very glad you made that shift.
Thanks so much Deborah. I think I just wish I had realised sooner. That I knew I was doing it rather than living it if that makes sense. My cousin is a teacher and has recently done the same thing. Mashed up by the system.
It makes perfect sense. You become your job long before you realize that you have disappeared within it!
Sam and Deborah, thanks to both of you for your article, Sam and your comments, Deborah. Both have really resonated with me.. I was a teacher who took a promotion in a ‘no excuses/zero tolerance’ multi academy trust. Lasted 6 months - couldn’t bear another minute of the ridiculousness of it all- before I left. My ‘workquake’ or ‘life quake’ (leaving a job when I hadn’t another to go to) coincided with perimenopause but ten years on from that, I now see that it was no coincidence. What was happening within me physically and emotionally allowed me to see things (and myself) in a way I might not have if I were younger and not perimenopausal.
It’s taken ten years for me to pick through and make sense of it all, and my identity is no longer determined by my job. I now help children succeed in the education system, rather than push them through it, hellbent on results (theirs and mine). It was a massive and wholly necessary ‘shift’. Thank you for encouraging this discussion, Sam.
Thank you for sharing that Sue. It really resonates on so many levels.
I read this with feelings of deep recognition. Teaching is exhausting and it took a long while for me to recover and pick up the threads.
Sam, I can't tell you how much I relate to this. Truly, feel this one deeply.
I remember reading the piece you wrote about your own experience a feeling it like a punch. So many of us
Thank you Sam. I’m in the midst of a job change so the timing for me was great. 👍🏻
Good luck!
Thank you Sam 😊
Good luck, Lorna. Rooting for you!
You’re the queen of reinvention Jen!
Hahahahaha perhaps!
Thank you 😊
Love this piece! Actually wrote in my journal last night, “my job does not define me.” So right on time. I feel lucky my generation is starting to make that distinction and shift but your words are very poignant. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you!
I've been going through this for allllllllll of 2023. First, I quit my job mid-semester as a university instructor because I didn't think I could cope with angry students and plagiarism and AI and checked out administrators for one more second. Then, I got hired into a Fancy New Marketing Exec Position... and got fired five months later. Instead of taking a beat, I threw myself into learning web design and creating a branding studio and applying for jobs and on and on and on. I really thought the answer was to push through and that if I stopped for even a moment, I'd fall apart. And then I did fall apart-- and found myself hospitalized and getting a hysterectomy at 32. It's only through *that* experience that I have started to come to terms with how divorced I had become from my sense of self. I'm slowly trying to piece together who I am... or who I could be.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this! It feels comforting to know that I'm not the only person who has gone through it, and I'm grateful for your vulnerability.
Wow, I truly loved reading this, and relate a lot. This time last year I left a job and and industry where I'd spent 10 years climbing the career ladder, only to get to the top and discover it was filled with burnout and unhappiness. Until I made that discovery, I was so deeply passionate about my work that it was my entire personality. I didn't have hobbies, the only friends I had were people who worked for the same company, and all of my time was spent at work, or checking my work emails. By the time I left I was incredibly unwell. I've found the last 12 months harder than I care to admit. I've found little parts of myself again along the way, and am rebuilding the person and character I want to be. In fact, Substack is helping me to do that by getting my writing online, a true passion that I've never taken further than my notepads. Reading that it has taken you a long time to find yourself again is comforting, I have been so hard on myself for not JUMPING head first into the next obsession but actually I'm now realising I just need to live. Live a life that fulfils me, as me. My job or career does not define me. Thank you so much for writing this piece!
Thank you - and thank you for sharing this. It sounds so familiar. I beat myself up constantly along the way - and if I’m completely honest - still do sometimes. It’s such a hard Gabor to break after years/decades on the treadmill.
At age 48, I'm going through (another) such reckoning right now. And wrestling with the: "You failure. What's WRONG with you?" voices. All to say, thank you for writing this.
Felt this on a visceral level, Sam. I wonder whether we have the capacity to learn it sooner? Maybe it's something that surfaces predominantly in one's 40's and 50's...I don't know. It's just that it seems that's the time many of us experience it. Do we have to go through life first to truly understand who we are and what our identity is? I'm pondering...
I think so much of what you say is true. J has just pointed out all the things I missed out of this piece - the rage (so much rage), the ptsd etc etc (obv you know all this bc it’s in the book), but I do agree that ultimately I don’t think I could have reached this point sooner bc I lacked the self awareness (and tbh had no interest in finding it…)
It’s the law of life. There’s a couple of young women I know - late teens, early 20’s - in car crashes of relationships. Gaslighting, the full works. It’s so obvious to me what they need to do but they’ve got to reach that themselves, and - sadly - go through the pain before the realisation. First the pain, then the rising as Glennon Doyle says. I wish there was another way for us all!
❤️❤️❤️
I had a growing sense of unease with my communications career for about 10 years until the pandemic - which fell when I was pregnant with my second child. I had the space to think - albeit not any sleep - and realised I just didn’t want to go back. So I did a horticulture diploma and worked part time as a gardener. I’m now part time head gardener at a restaurant and do a bit of freelance garden writing. I’ve just got a brilliant new mentor and next year my daughter starts school so I will actually start to earn money rather than just breaking even on childcare. I’ve doubted myself a lot. But I’m so glad I did this! Thanks for sharing your story - I loved the Pool, by the way!
Thank you on all counts! Self-doubt - and the prescribed way of doing things - stops us doing so much, I’m so glad you’ve found your way forward.
RED was among the magazines I admired in 10 years at the helm of Canada’s leading women’s magazine. I too stepped down voluntarily with my mission fulfilled, before anyone could murmur, “She’s lost her touch.” Without the job that defined and obsessed me, I no longer knew who I was. I missed the up-and-comers I mentored and the readers who had come to know me through my monthly editorial. I wrote my first book but one book is not an identity. Everyone told me then transition would take three years. For 10 years I flailed and kvetched, wondering what was wrong with me. Then my husband talked me into rescuing a dog who got me out of my head and into the world. I wrote a book, STARTER DOG, about the new life we made together, and now here I am, a newcomer to Substack, trying not to dwell on the subscriber counts and open rate that are so reminiscent of magazine land. Thank you for telling the complicated truth about leaving a job you have loved. I’ll be back.
I think we have walked a similar path. And I totally hear you about the numbers. After decades of standing or falling based on one issues sales, it’s tough not to judge yourself on comments, clicks etc. x
As someone in the midst of a midlife meltdown down and identity crisis - this was super helpful read. So much to learn from you and your experience. Thanks for so generously sharing. Always been a fan!
Anything I can do to help Nishma, just shout x
Oh god, I see so much of myself in this, snd even though I was made redundant rather than resigned from my dream job (damn you, pandemic!). ‘I’ve stopped running, or even walking away from anything. I’ve finally learnt that it’s what you’re walking towards that matters’ - bingo
It is almost eight years since I was fired from my dream job, four days before turning 50! In these eight years I was rehired by the same people who fired me (with half my salary and in a lower position), I could move to an even better job than the one I had, but it wasn’t my “dream job”, I wasn’t happy. Last year I resigned and moved to Paris, in order to write and read (the cliché of a wanna be writer I supposed) I still couldn’t figure out what I want to do or where I want to be. But, I am definitely happy to be part of the Substack community. It is a great place to express oneself and to find incredible interesting people.
Rehired on half the salary in a lower position... did you work in media? Or do all industries do that to older staff? I think we're all so trained to have to be something, it can take a while to realise we don't. And so agree about Substack. Love it here.
Apparently it is common not only in media! I was Senior Legislative Advisor at the National Senate of Argentina. I am a Lawyer and Bioethicist, and at the moment of my dismissal I was the Coordinator of the Parliamentary Human Rights Observatory, an area I helped to create. I didn’t see it coming and I was completely devastated. I remember telling my daughter: I was the Bioethicist who drafts Law, now Who am I? I lost all sense of identity and belonging; and I think as a kind of resistance, I decided to write in English from that moment.
Wow. My mind is blown. Can I ask... do you think that would have happened if you were a man?
The answer is: definitely not! I was a single female professional in a place of power, and paradoxically that put me in a place of great vulnerability.
This makes me SO mad. So much for equality.
Still a long way to go...
Very much resonate with this - the allure of the shiny job is a potent distraction from the uncomfortable-ness of being a person...
100% this