5 Comments

Thanks for a great, thought-provoking piece. I was being interviewed for a podcast a few months back, and the host asked about who I was before I started writing. And so I talked about the journey from uni in Ireland to dropping out, working, travelling, going back to uni as a mature student in London, getting that design degree and then realising there was no effing way I was working for peanuts, and going back to working in media sales. I got a lot of shit for this stuff, and there were definitely a couple of F-u-I’m-outta-here stories. As a result, back in the day, I had a lot of shame about this journey. Like I was a “quitter” who’d “underperformed”. Like I could have been so much more if only I could have stuck it out with jobs that sometimes felt like shit or that just weren’t doing it for me. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see the forward motion in those various decisions, even if it looks zig-zagged instead of a straight line up a ladder like others said it should be. I remember the host saying how “cool” my decisions were, and my being caught off guard. I just hadn’t thought of them that way. I don’t think I do yet, either. But they are and were my choices, and that’s good with me.

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Thank you for this Harriet! Your posts are very much resonating with me as I go through my own midlife crisis or my positive awakening as I am now trying to call it. I have left a job, church and friendships as I break free but I’m trying not to leave anything else! I referenced one of your pieces in one of my pieces (hope that’s ok) as it really spoke to me.

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Really enjoy what you share in your blog, Harriet.

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I love that someone encouraged you to change your mind when you were young! In my family, that was a flaw, something to be punished, even as a child. "Well, you quit piano lessons when you were 5, no way are you getting them at 15!" The logic of control. But we get to change! Our minds, our careers, our beliefs. It's evolution. And when change isn't encouraged, we get stuck, we become miserable. Like you said, we have to be responsible and accountable for our decisions. At the end of the day, though, like Sarah said, we just want to be happy. xo

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Love, love, love this, Harriet! I waited so long the first time I changed career, because that’s what I felt was necessary at the time, but crikey it was painful.

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