I gave a keynote on "letting go" last June.
Then my daughter was born. My wife got laid off. I left the career I'd built since 2018.
Turns out I didn't actually know what letting go meant.
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Most high achievers are running a worthiness story they never named.
It sounds like this: once I hit the number, once the body's right, then I'll let myself feel good.
I'd know. I ran it for years...
An assessment told me my sense of meaning was "dangerously" fused to my job.
I wasn't surprised. I just hadn't filed it under problem.
Then my wife got laid off, and the warning stopped being abstract...
If you've got a low hum of dread that your whole self is riding on one job, name the thing you actually bring. The way you show up that has nothing to do with being paid.
Your work is one room you carry it into. A good one, maybe the best. But it was never the only one.
Deep inner suffering inevitably arises when the human person is reduced to performance, consumption, or a statistical datum. Many young people today live under the yoke of expectations to perform, immersed in an exasperated competitiveness that generates anxiety, fear of not measuring up, and disorientation.