There’s a strange alchemy that happens when I sit down to write even while I’m carrying a certain heaviness. Not because I’ve shed the proverbial weight, but because I’ve chosen to write anyway.
I’ve learned that the days when I least want to write are usually the days that I need to do most. Right now, I’m deep in job searching—that in between space where you’re simultaneously overqualified and misaligned, where your resume tells one story but your soul is asking for another. I have seventeen years of experience across sales, account management, brand marketing, and product marketing as an individual contributor and the past nine years in leadership roles. On paper, the trajectory is clear: keep climbing, bigger titles, larger teams, more zeros.
But something shifted. Work has taken a different role in my life. It’s still important, but right now I’m less interested in big titles and power than I am in doing work that actually matters. I want to be a high-impact individual contributor again—to build and create rather than oversee and delegate. And I’m not entirely sure this makes sense to anyone reading my applications. Let’s be real, it’s almost always AI doing that initial screening. Why would someone with seventeen years experience apply to mid-level roles? And yes, I’ve tailored my resume, but no amount of tailoring can explain away that clear trajectory my resume outlines.
This is the uncertainty I’m carrying into my writing today.
Writing through stress feels different than writing through ease. The words come slower, more reluctantly. They’re cloudier, less certain of themselves. But there’s something honest in that cloudiness—a truth that only shows itself when I’m not performing clarity, when I’m simply here with what is. Everything feels cloudy in the moments that I feel cloudy too. What’s important is not hiding from it.
This morning I opened this blank page and felt nothing but resistance. The cursor blinks back at me like a question I’m not ready to answer: What do you actually want? My mind offers every reasonable doubt. You’re going backwards. You’ll be seen as a step-down candidate. You’re confusing people with this pivot. And maybe some of that’s true. But I’ve noticed something else underneath those doubts—my inner knowing that validation isn’t the same thing as meaning.
Money and recognition still matter to me. I’m not pretending they don’t. But it’s different now. Before, success felt like evidence—proof that I was worthy, capable, enough. The next title, the bigger team, the increased responsibility—each one a defense against some unnamed fear. Now, when I think about what I want from work, it’s simpler and somehow harder: I want to be part of something meaningful. I want to do good work with people I respect. I want my days to feel purposeful rather than prestigious and pretentious.
This shift doesn’t fit neatly into a cover letter.
Here’s what I’ve taken from thirteen years of meditation practice into both my writing and this career transition: you don’t wait for clear signs before you show up. You meet yourself in the uncertainty. The cushion doesn’t care if you arrive with answers. It holds space for the questions.
I think about the seasons. Trees don’t refuse to exist through winter because they’re not blooming. They appear differently—quieter, more bare—but they appear nonetheless. Maybe this is my winter. Not a regression, but a necessary turning inward before whatever wants to emerge can take root.
Writing through this strange in-between place isn’t about resolving it. It’s about staying in conversation with myself. It’s about not abandoning my practice—whether that’s meditation, writing, or honest self-inquiry—when it feels most uncertain. Not to fix the discomfort, but to know myself through it.
Some days I write with clarity and conviction. Today I’m writing from the middle of not-knowing, and that’s valid too. Both are real. Both are me.
The point isn’t having it figured out. The point is presence. The point is saying: even when I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I still care about myself enough to write. To put words to the uncertainty I’m carrying. To honor this practice as something important, whether I arrive confident or confused. That consistency is what builds self-trust over time. It’s a reminder that change rarely looks linear. A foundational knowing that everything always works out as long as I keep showing up for myself.
