On career (dis)satisfaction and personal fulfillment.
Something's changing. I don't fully know what it is yet but maybe that's my problem; always trying to solve the puzzle before the pieces hit the table.
I popped onto Substack earlier from my desktop to respond to some folks and to tinker with what I'm posting tomorrow. I saw a Note at the top of my feed, just as I was about to click off the page. It was one of those text-overlay images that can feel very instagrammy—usually the cheeky platitude, pandering kind. This one was different. It was just a plain white background with a simple, courier-looking black font. It caught my attention because it started with something like "the real reason you're miserable is..."
Just from that I was ready to scoff.
This oughta be good.
But when I kept reading I didn't scoff. Begrudgingly, I had to admit the preachy post had a point. I wish I saved it because now I can't find it again. Figures. The point it made was essentially that dissatisfaction doesn't come from difficulty, but from the distance between who we are and who we pretend to be. When we feel we have to do something or be someone we're not, the gap widens. I've hit that crossroads many times so far in my life. In fact, I'm standing here again. Right now.
That Substack Note stayed with me long after I'd logged off. Later, while walking, I found myself thinking about it some more. I built a career around marketing because I thought it'd move me forward in life. Interesting work, decent earning potential. I liked communication, systems, and strategy well enough—and still do—but after 15 years I've come to realize I've been mislabeling the job.
Truth be told, I hate marketing. Rather, I've watched as all "marketing" seemingly became "performance marketing"... and that basically means marketers are now just analytics order-takers. And that's what I hate.
Wow, that actually feels really good to type. Because what I do like is using my creativity to solve puzzles—to connect strategies with stories that resonate with real people. The synthesizing part of the process is what I like most; writing just happens to be my preferred method. But if I wanted to purchase attention based on performance metrics, I'd have been a stock broker.
Given that the focus of the MAP Year Project, and these daily snippets, is to embrace my love of writing, and to pursue it more intentionally, this whole concept is hardly new to me. But, it is easy to forget the throughline when trudging through my day-to-day. Here's the problem: marketing is what pays my bills (at least, for now). I know how to use that skillset, and yet, to continue doing that feels like a departure from my real self. Thus is the plight of the pretender.
So today I'm reminding myself that endurance and navigation are not the same thing. Enduring a situation can be helpful... but navigating intentionally is how you change things.
I don't really know what that looks like yet. But that's why I'm watching the puzzle pieces hit the table before jumping in to solve it, like I usually would. Maybe doing that is what closes the gap between who I am and who I've pretended to be.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
83/365
When faced with discomfort, are you able to observe your surroundings before ditching what you were doing? If you knew it would help you, would you keep going even if things were uncomfortable? Why?
onward.
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