Okay, so everyone talks about chasing that big goal, right? For me, for years, it was climbing the ladder at my job. You know, get the title, the corner office (well, maybe not a corner one, but you get it), the comfortable salary. And I did it. Got there. Felt like, okay, this is it. This is the ‘happily ever after’ they talk about.
And it was good, for a while. Felt like I’d finally arrived. Checked all the boxes I thought I needed to check. But then, a funny thing started happening. Slowly. It wasn’t like a big bang, more like a slow leak. I’d sit in meetings, deal with spreadsheets, manage people… and just feel… flat. The fire I used to have, that buzz from actually doing the thing I was managing people to do? It was kinda gone.
Figuring Things Out
It took me a while to even admit it to myself. Felt like I was being ungrateful. I mean, I had what I wanted, right? So I started thinking back. What did I actually enjoy? Not what should I enjoy, but what genuinely made me feel engaged?
- I remembered spending hours just tinkering on old projects.
- I recalled the satisfaction of building something with my own hands, even small stuff.
- I missed the problem-solving part, the getting-stuck-and-then-figuring-it-out part.
The management stuff, the strategy, it was okay, but it wasn’t it. Not the core of it for me.
Starting Something Small
So, I decided I needed to get back to that, somehow. Didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know? The job paid the bills. So, I started small. Really small.
I cleared a corner in my garage. Pulled out some old tools I hadn’t touched in ages. My first “project” was just fixing a wobbly chair that had been bugging me for months. Took me like, two hours. But man, when it was done, solid, not wobbling anymore? That felt… disproportionately good. Way better than signing off on some budget report.
Then I moved onto something else. A little coding project on the side, just for fun, nothing serious. Something completely unrelated to my day job. Started spending maybe an hour or two on weekends, sometimes an evening after work if I wasn’t too drained. Didn’t put pressure on myself. The goal wasn’t to build the next big thing, it was just to do the thing.
Where I’m At Now
It’s not like I quit my job or anything dramatic. I still do the management thing. But bringing back that hands-on, tinkering part of my life, even in a small way? It made a huge difference. It’s like it refilled something that had gone empty. The day job feels less like the entirety of who I am and more like, well, a job. A job that enables me to do other things, including the stuff I actually get a kick out of.
So yeah, ‘happily ever after’ isn’t always a destination you just arrive at and stay put. Sometimes it’s realizing you parked in the wrong spot, or maybe you just needed to open a window and get some fresh air. For me, it was about finding that little space back in the garage. That’s my practice, my way of handling what comes after the supposed end goal. Just doing the work, the small stuff, that feels right.
