It feels good to be writing one of these posts again. I feel like so much has happened since the previous post, in which I looked back on all the work I did for this newsletter in 2023. And then I am not even thinking about what is going on in the world, with my own government as well as yours if you are from the U.S., Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, or Finland, withdrawing funding for the largest supplier of humanitarian aid in Gaza a mere two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to let this vital aid through. I want to leave that for what it is for the moment, and instead use this post to get some things off my chest, to share some more intimate details of my life and the current direction that I am heading in.
If you’re a free subscriber, you usually do not get these posts, since I write these as a sort of extra thanks to my supporters, sharing personal thoughts and feelings or events going on in my life. But I wanted to share the below part of the post with everyone, because I feel like what I’m expressing there applies to so many of us:
The comfort of routine, the certainty it brings, it can be so tempting to just stick with what you have and ride it out. I run into that feeling every time I start working somewhere new. But I now realise that it ultimately keeps me from fully embracing the life that I really want. In many ways, certainty is an illusion that we convince ourselves of to feel safe, to feel at ease in the constant chaos raging around us. The truth is, I can’t stand certainty. I don’t even think it exists, if I’m being perfectly honest with you. Certainty is an illusion that we convince ourselves of to feel safe, to feel at ease in the constant chaos raging around us.
How many of us stay in jobs we do not like, so that we can pay for food and rent or mortgage? How many of us secretly have dreams that we wish we could try, and I mean really try, to turn into reality, but don’t because we are afraid of giving up a stable income? One Gallup poll found that 60% of U.S. workers feel emotionally detached and 19% miserable at work. Only 33% reported feeling engaged. This month I realised, even more than before, that I really do not want to become part of that statistic.
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