Lately

I’ve been a little less online lately, but not to worry, I have just been living my life :)

Several weeks ago, I gave notice at work and left. Some people in my life were surprised, because it was a good job at a good company, I generally enjoyed it, I got to work with wonderful people, and I was paid money to do it. The younger version of me who hadn’t yet figured out a career direction would be curious (and more than a little skeptical) about why I would quit such an objectively good job.

I think the short version of why is that my relationship with my work has evolved as I’ve gotten further along in my career journey and this is probably the first time where I made a career transition driven more by a pull toward something else, and less by a push away from where I was.

Also in the past several weeks, I turned 40, which I had been not-very-lowkey dreading but now that it’s here I am actually… enjoying myself? I took a few weeks off between jobs, during which I traveled across the country, stared out the window of a train for hours, saw various family members, spent 24 hours in Las Vegas, hiked in the desert, and other nice things that were mostly rejuvenating and fun, and then I concluded it with a relatively chill birthday gathering here in the city.

I don’t know if turning a milestone age has changed anything material about my brain or body but I have noticed a shift in my mindset and perspective on certain things.

One thing I noticed is that lately I haven’t encountered too many situations where I have NO idea how to approach the problem. I guess that’s because of LIFE EXPERIENCE, which I didn’t realize I was accumulating?!

Not to say I know everything — if anything, I feel like the more I know the more I realize how little I actually know. The only difference lately is that somehow I have gotten much better at (1) formulating the right questions to ask, (2) deciding which questions are important to answer versus those where it’s sufficient to just have a good question articulated, and (3) for the ones do need answers, whether it makes more sense for me to try and answer it or if someone else is going to give a better answer. But I don’t know that I’m any better at giving answers.

Being a new person at a new job comes with a lot of discomfort, the discomfort of not knowing things. But knowing the feeling of not knowing things IS something I have felt many times before. I felt it very viscerally (still do) and, being somewhat avoidant, would overindex on learning as much as I could as fast as I could about whatever the thing was so I wouldn’t have to feel the feeling. I think part of that was why I did okay in medical school because I had to quickly learn a lot of facts I had never known before. Now I’m trying my best to embrace the discomfort, and also being able to say “I don’t know” full stop (as opposed to “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” which is what you’re supposed to say as a medical student).

Of course, being able to say “I don’t know” with any regularity is something of a perk that comes with being mid-career because there are enough things I do know in my areas of expertise. But in the grand scheme of things there is much much much more that I don’t know, so it’s been a good push for me to not be too comfortable.

I have tried to channel my niece, who, like most little kids has no shame about being wrong and is excited to learn things and therefore learns fast and without any emotional scarring (hopefully). Adults (me) often try too hard to look cool and smart and like a font (baptismal, not typographic) of wisdom and as a result we learn more slowly and painfully. Also sometimes we think we know everything which is probably a bigger blocker to learning. But I have noticed that my niece is perpetually just stating her assumptions plainly, and if she’s wrong, some adult will almost always correct her, which she internalizes, and then moves on. I’ve started doing that more often — stating my assumption even when I know it’s probably wrong — and once I get over the initial hump of thisIsProbablyAStupidQuestionBut¹, it’s actually much faster for learning and somewhat psychologically safe.

Another nice thing lately is that spring is FULLY SPRINGING here in the northern hemisphere and sometimes I forget how much the weather affects my mood but when the air is crisp and the sun is out and the trees are flowering and I can wear a light zip-up hoodie without an overcoat I feel like things are so possible!!!