It's one of those days that I knew was coming for so long that I imagined almost every possible way it could have played out. But when it actually came it still wasn't quite what I expected. Not worse or better, just different. Like...I didn't expect to carry two desks on my head over cubes to prep my office for two new analysts starting on Monday.
Right now it's mostly pretty surreal. I find myself thinking a lot about the projects I didn't get a chance to see through and some of the day to day changes that will start next week, but even that doesn't seem real. It probably won't hit me til I pack up all my stuff and start the 19 hour drive south.
I'm a bit scared. Leaving the job is final. I have no income, a big cross country move, and a mountain of debt waiting for me. Sometimes I wonder if I'm making the right decision, but ultimately I know it's the right time and the right step in my career. My company was acquired, senior leadership is changing, and I felt myself starting to plateau a bit development-wise.
There are definitely some things I wish I could have learned or done better at my job. But I've come to realize that optimal life decision making is essentially impossible because optimal life decisions aren't bound by hard rules. I can't put numbers into an EV calculation that spits out the best life for me. The definition of life optimal can be so fluid that trying to make every optimal life decision creates the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. There are some articles out there along some of the same lines about satisficing and I've got to think they're pretty valid.
Being a more cerebral type, I've thought about this for a while. It's one of the big reasons I love the quote below and try to remember it as often as I can. It's a quote from a law student who dropped out maybe five or size years ago to play online poker and take the road less traveled. He wrote a great blog that consists more of life lessons exemplified by poker than just poker rambling (zbasic.com/pokerblog if you're interested).
People love to come up with reasons why it’s not a great time to take a vacation, but you know what: if you wait until everything in your life is absolutely perfect before you take that trip/buy that house/talk to that girl/get in shape/have a baby, well, you’ll wake up old and wrinkled one day and wonder where it was you made a wrong turn. And maybe, just maybe you’ll come to the depressing conclusion that it wasn’t a wrong turn you took anywhere along the way, but rather it was your reluctance to make any turn at all.
So thanks to all my coworkers, especially those in the cube farm in Chicago who have tolerated me sending random emails with pandas riding tricycles and such. I hope you all keep in touch once I leave town.
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