AE (After Employment) Journal - Day 1

Yesterday I lost my job.

After several months of bearing the brunt of reduced sales and a full staff, the technology company where I had worked for 8 years informed me (over a virtual teams meeting of course) that my position was no longer available. Unfortunately, this has been an all too familiar scene during this crisis.
Was I surprised? Slightly. Given what’s going on in the world, those who still hold permanent full time employment likely have a nagging wonder in the back of their mind when the other shoe might drop (I did). However, my team had just finished a long project, with plans for followup activities in the works, so although a large phase was coming to conclusion perhaps creating a natural inflection point where steam members could be changed, I still perceived any concerns I had relating to the sudden meeting invitation request the following afternoon from my manager to be nothing more than paranoia. Turns out it wasn't
Was my initial reaction one of despair, disappointment, sadness or rejection? The truth is…No. Not really. But why?

Let’s back up a bit. 3 months ago, my wife and I gave birth to a baby girl. Our second child, having been born 5 years after our first. One would thing that a normal reaction, especially with a 2 young children at home in need to support would be something to the effect of “how the hell are you going to provide for your family when you have no source of income, nobody is hiring and the world is still mostly in lockdown?" These are all very good questions to which I do not have the answers to.

Since the start of university, I had always had a job, some kind of income stream no matter how small, even if it was extremely casual and non reliable. Waiter, music teacher, bartender, clothing retailer, musician, help desk analyst, summer camp instructor, and finally after I graduated, programmer, engineer, project manager and technical lead. Today is actually the first time in almost 20 years that I have absolutly no prospects for income generation of any kind whatsoever. I really have no idea what the future holds, but I kinda like it. Terrifying, but sobering.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been brief moments of realization and sheer terror about the distinct possibility that I have no options and no future going forward (which are likely to continue at higher frequency and magnitude throughout the coming weeks). I have come to the realization however that all along, especially after completing University, I really just took the first job that was offered to me because I was too scared about the idea of having no prospects. What if I turned it down and didn’t get another job offer? How would I pay my debts, afford rent, be a respectable member of society? I would go from job to job like this, sometimes as few at the same time. As a result, except for a few notable exceptions, I turns out that most days of my 15 year professional working career have been spent doing things that I didn’t want to be doing. Days gone by, trading in time for money, without anything cosmically significant resulting from it. What could be more tragic than that last statement.
Like most people, I made decisions on what was worthwhile by how much I would be paid. Surely, if I was being paid an above average wage, it would mean that my contribution to the world for the years spent would also be of above average importance. Right? The reality began to sink in more and more with each passing year, that I was not getting anything else out of the time invested except a paycheque

I began to ask myself: What would happen if I started making decisions of where to invest my time based exclusively on what I wanted to do the most that day, not what would pay me the most money. When you actually write it out and read it back to yourself, it sounds absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible. This is no way to pay the mortgage or put food on the table in any consistent way.

There is a Japanese concept known as Ikigai, which outlines a path to fulfillment when 4 overlapping tenants come into alignment. They are:

-Do What You Love
-Do What You Are Good At
-Do What The World Needs
-Do What You Can be Paid For.

I started to ask myself: what would happen if I lived every day only following my Ikigai? Would I simply become destitute and homeless in a matter of months if all I wanted to do is watch movies and play video games instead of doing anything productive? I can’t particularly say that I felt all that motivated in most of my previous positions other than that I was expected to fill a role and hold certain responsibilities in exchange for a paycheque. What if it actually was this easy, that by committing to doing what you love every day, you would inherently open up opportunities needed to sustain yourself from doing that very thing as a side effect. Most people would say that this is wishful thinking, and they would most likely be right, but the path less traveled by is less traveled for a reason. As I chronicle my daily life After Employment, I hope to track my thoughts, experiences and progress as I go (This could very well be the shortest blog series in history).

Let’s get started...