It’s that time of the year to engage in reflection with the hope that new insight emerges. I’ve been doing my fair share of reflections, which inadvertently led to a contemplation about life in general. In this post, I intend to stay true to reflecting on the past one year alone (as what most people do when the new year comes close). This is with the utmost hope that it will better prepares me for the year to come. So, here goes.
2022’s career blessing
For context, I started a new business entity in September of 2020. In 2021, I was encouraged, but not completely certain, that the business was going to do well. 2022, on the other hand, showed a predictable and constant business performance month-on-month. This year was the year that convinced me that I am doing well in my business and career.
I couldn’t be asking more out of my career at this stage of my life. I am at the best synergy of what I can provide professionally: I provide my service to customers, I teach and supervise others, and I manage a business. All in all, my academic requirements, professional and business experience, individual characteristics, the right support, and a fair bit of luck, have converged to this point in time, providing me with this outcome.
I am beyond blessed and very grateful to be where I currently am. I have achieved the end goal of what I had been hoping to achieve out of my professional life.
However, as much as I rejoice and appreciate the gift that I have received, nothing would have prepared me for the overwhelming anxiety that was to come.
What is there left to do?
All of my professional years were along a measured trajectory. There was always a plan in place to ensure that the trajectory remains upward. As compared from the month or year before, this can come in the form of an increased income, better job, more satisfaction, more options, more autonomy, more influence, and so on and so on.
The added investment of time and effort oftentimes had an intended incremental benefit to my professional self. As with many others who want to grow their career, I would often like for it to also coincide with positive gains in other domains of life, namely it having a positive effect on my finances and quality of life.
To be frank, I enjoyed this “game” which people refer to as “career development”. It is a game which requires strategy and resourcefulness. There is a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at the completion of every “level”.
However, applying the same mental framework at present is a challenge if not impossible. There are no longer immediate needs to fulfill. Barring any dramatic circumstances and so long as the status quo somewhat remains, any further time and effort invested into my career will instead fulfill my wants.
It is at this juncture in life that I realize I am not as hungry as I think I was. It really takes tremendous hunger to want to lead a company bigger than a handful of employees. I cannot even imagine the kind of hunger it takes to lead a billion dollar company. As much as I look up to successful global figures with tremendous entrepreneurial achievements such as the Elons or Steves of the world, what is certain is I do not have that drive in me to want accomplishments of that magnitude.
What if there is no longer a need to plot for an upward trajectory in my career? What is there left to do?
Mid-Life Crisis?
Reaching the end goal of what I had hoped to achieve in my career much earlier on led to unpleasant surprises. It not only meant that I had to let go of the only mode of operation that I knew in my professional life (e.g., do better compared to the day before), but it also meant that I had to face what typically comes at the conclusion of one’s professional life.
In 2022, I have been struggling with the realization that life is finite. While everyone obviously knows that we all die someday, but not many of us actively think and feel this as an impending and eventual reality. We always have something more urgent and immediate in our environment to worry about. Often, it revolves around building a sustainable life for ourselves and the people we care about (which a job helps with).
But what if we’re done with the job of sustaining life? What happens next?
I had never related to the portrayal of a “mid-life crisis”. This is oftentimes stereotypically portrayed as a middle-aged man making impulsive decisions unbefitting to himself and his age. But I get it now. Whatever a “mid-life crisis” looks like as an action, the intrinsic drive to perform said action matters more. Personally, it is the realization that I have arrived at the end and not knowing what comes next other than eventual death. It is as if I am one step away from the edge of the grid of the earth. Taking that one step would achieve complete disconnection from productive society. It signals the end of the “rat race”, but also the abyss.
Existential Vacuum
As much as I do get overwhelmed with death anxiety from time to time, I also note that this is a kind of anxiety that is due to privilege. It is the kind of anxiety that comes from not having an immediate threat to my professional and financial life. In my case, a “what next?” vacuum was created once my career goal has been accomplished.
Upon further evaluation, this is a privileged anxiety because it is a kind of anxiety from having freedom and choice. There is freedom and choice to decide if I should operate based on the same logic as most people would if they were me, namely to have the business do better than what it did the month/ year before. But, there is also the freedom and choice to pursue other options. What if I just maintained business operations and invest my time and effort to pursue other interests? Maybe start a fun new business? How about delegating work and wander the world instead?
I am still searching as to which option is best. Due to this, I am still met with (at times) overwhelming anxiety about impending and eventual death. But, wisdom seems to point towards deepening my work in psychology and business. There is a reason why they fascinate and engage me so much. This fascination had led me to putting in the time and effort to get better at them. It then resulted in the outcome that I am currently having. I suppose doing what works won’t hurt?
You might have heard about a rather divine concept of “Ikigai”. It means the intersection of skills, talent, and profession, leading to a purpose in life. I suppose I struggle with this. With the limited time that I have being alive, am I doing my life’s best work or engaging in the most purposeful of actions? I don’t know.
Conclusion
The immediate future as of next year looks clear: do some teaching, market the business more effectively, do some traveling, start writing that book that I’ve always said I’d do.
As for the longer-term future, I’d say I’m still a work in progress. And I suppose this is a shared quality that I have with everybody else, regardless of life’s circumstances. There is a definite mystery of what the future holds. And I am certain that in our own little ways, all of us are searching for a fair bit of meaning in the shroud that’s ahead of us.
Perhaps this is the grandest game to play. An unsolved mystery that can never be solved. A game which we call “life”?