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.

Last month Katherine called out the tension inherent in a “personal” website which is that it is both public and personal, and one’s public (or professional) persona is often different from that of their personal life. Robin Rendle riffed on the concept and said that it’s totally fine for personal websites to be messy or imperfect or weird (i.e., not necessarily how you’d want to present a “professional” front) and declared, in a pretty great and punchy/pithy statement, “You’re a poem and not software”.

I spent a lot of time and energy in my life worrying about things I felt like I had to do for one reason or another. Either everyone else was doing the thing, or specific people were pressuring me to do the thing, or I never saw real examples or models of people who didn’t do the thing, etc. At some point I started to realize that, if I really challenged myself, I didn’t have to do some of the things I believed I had to in order to win at life (and I would include the idea of having to “win at life” on this list).