Nothing is guaranteed. Live your life your way.

By Jamie Finn, journalist and content strategist.

It was December, less than two weeks from our planned holiday travels to visit all of our extended families. It was the middle of an extremely busy and chaotic fall-turned-winter. I was in a hospital room holding my semi-conscious son after being transported from our home via ambulance. My husband walked in, having raced to meet us from his office, and all the tears I had been trying to stifle flooded from my eyes. My son’s head rose and fell on my chest as I sobbed. He was stable, thank God, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the split seconds he went from napping to not breathing. What had started as a regular Monday turned in an instant to the day I thought I was watching him leave this Earth without me. 

When we finally came home later that night, as I made a bed for myself in his room, all I could think was: everything that is not my family needs to stop. This is the only thing that matters, and how could it have taken this to remember that?

If you’ve been here a while, you know I left my corporate job in the spring of 2019 because I wanted more flexibility in my schedule. This was pre-Covid days where we were required to be in the office 5 days a week, and I wanted more time with my then one-year-old son. I had gotten up the courage to quit and jump into the unknown (much of the credit for that decision comes from my first conversation with Melissa). I was prepared to figure things out as I went, and to let the next chapter begin without knowing the ending. 

And then about a month after I walked out of 30 Rock for the last time, I started to panic. I wasn’t prepared for the fear, or the internalized pressure I had, to avoid a resume gap. Which I realize is a strange thing to fear because I had quit my job at the time of my choosing and for reasons that included having more time with my family. I’m not sure when or where I had heard that the resume gap was a big no-no. But I believed it so deeply that I panicked about not having “enough” paid labor. I say paid, because let’s be honest, I had a lot of other non-paid work to keep me busy. As the “income B” in my marriage, a lot of the non-paid labor falls to me – most of the “to do’s” around the house, keeping the kids’ schedules in order, etc. And yet, I still feel incredible pressure to keep my work skills sharp, to stay relevant, and to keep trying to build a work identity for myself post-corporate life. Until that horrible day in December, I had managed to pull it all off. To juggle multiple work projects and home life, and feel like my resume still looked great. I somehow managed to “have it all.” 

Earlier that same day, I had a call with MTD’s February contributor, Chris Meador. He has a stellar resume, and confessed that even the great resume wasn’t the key to his happiness. He had pivoted in his career, and what he said about pivoting really stuck with me: career pivots are not pivots in the way we think of them. You have a set of skills, areas that you excel in, and you can apply them to different industries or in a different role. That’s not “pivoting” at all, really. You’re still the same person with the same great skills, but you’re just using them in a different arena. He also talked a lot about taking a break, but in the interest of not giving away his entire piece before he actually writes it, let me just say: he’s FULL of excellent advice. 

And so, I write to you from a new place I’m trying out. I’m taking a break, and trying to find that elusive more time with my kids. I’m stepping away as Head of Content for M.T. Deco for now, and also walking away from the pressure or the worry about what anything might look like on my resume. 

My pause, or pivot, looks like this: the core of my work is writing, editing, and creating quality content. I have always enjoyed writing, I have always excelled at writing. I do it for money sometimes and I do it just for myself sometimes, and whenever I’m ready to return more of my brain power to the career side of my life, I’ll still have those skills. They’re not going to disappear. 

I share all of this with you to say: if you’ve also recently quit a job, or lost a job, and you feel that pressure creeping in – that “oh my gosh I have to find something to put on my resume” — take a deep breath. Your job does not define you as a person. You are so much more than the work that you do. If you have the luxury of taking a break, take it! Then, focus on your core strengths. They don’t disappear. You’ve built them, you’ve honed them, and they belong to YOU, not your company or your boss. They are yours to use as you will. It’s O.K. to pivot them to a different industry, or a different company, or (gasp!) to take an even longer break while you figure it all out. There will always be more work that you could do.

I’ve always thought I needed to protect future Jamie’s career by making the “right” choices today. But I had a terrible reminder that nothing in this life is promised. We don’t know what will happen next year, or next week, or tomorrow, or 10 years from now. Literally nothing is guaranteed. Focus on what you can control, and let future you figure out the future details. Who knows, you might even thank yourself. I know I will.