Sliding doors

“I haven’t been doing the work,” my mentee admitted to me over dinner.

Confused, I asked him what work. “Figuring out what to do with the rest of my life,” he answered.

I kept waiting for him to laugh and admit the joke. But he didn’t, it was meant as a serious confession to me. Keep in mind he’d just graduated from undergrad the month before.

“Oh sweetie,” I assured him, “you don’t need to know. And even if you did know, it is subject to change.” Then we had a conversation about the beauty of being 22. “Twenty-two is an age when the whole world is filled with possibilities and even mistakes are viewed as lessons rather than cataclysmic problems or personal defects you can’t come back from,” I told him.

Not like 42 for example. 

At 22, people backpack across Southeast Asia, WWOOF through Europe, or try out three different careers in 18 months. Sometimes they do all three!

“The beauty of your 20s,” I assured him, “is that you can explore everything and not be boxed in to a path.”

Technically, that freedom is everyone’s all the time. We can all have the right to shake things up. I met a friend when we were both journalists 20 years ago, a few years after we met she went to law school and clerked for a year. 

Then she quit. Law school be damned.

She’d always had a side hustle selling vintage clothing online and after getting a taste of the lawyer life she realized it wasn’t for her and she’d rather sell clothes. So she’s building an empire. She decided she wanted a different life than the one she’d been building for herself, a life different from the one everyone expected her to inhabit. I talked to her the other day…she doesn’t regret the change.

Still, most people, the older we get the less likely we are to shift. It feels scarier somehow even though we are equipped with more experience and often more money. It feels like there is more to lose; and in some ways there is.

In midlife, the sliding doors options for life are starker, the sacrifices more pronounced. For some there are spouses and children, for others there are career ladders with so many more steps to climb. And there is always money…and time. Usually too little of both. 

Fresh out of undergrad, before I joined the Peace Corps, I temped at a big maritime company. They liked me and my work and offered me a full time position- salary and benefits. My mother couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to take that solid paying gig instead of gallivanting all over Africa.

I didn’t hesitate; that sliding door option was easy for me to ignore. I didn’t want to be the communications person at some company I’d never heard of. I didn’t know enough about a 401k nor did I give a moment’s thought to retirement. Plus, I was certain that if I got offered one profitable gig at 23 then surely I’d be offered others later; so why not gallivant? And if I’m really being honest…I was sure that I was destined for bigger or at least more interesting things. 

I wasn’t wrong. I traveled quite a bit, worked in a zigzag rather than a linear career trajectory. And then, at some point in adulthood it finally felt urgent to make more substantial decisions. Choices that connected to each other. Plans that included retirement.

So I straightened my zigzagging line. 

There were a few hiccups. A few side excursions where life threw curve-balls I had to adapt to; but I finally hunkered down and started building my adult life. My “adult life”. The one my mentee thinks he’s supposed to have figured out at 22, the one I’m still  uncertain about 20 years his senior. 

The sliding doors don’t go away. Sometimes we learn to ignore them but they remain, tempting or terrifying depending on your perspective. 

About two years ago I began to lose my taste for the door I’d walked through. The “adulting” door with pre-tax deductions, life insurance, and reasonable paths to better paying jobs with fancier titles.

Now I stand with my toes peeking over the side of the unknown and I wonder what the hell I’m doing. Wondering if this sliding door is the stop I should be making. Wouldn’t accepting the next career marker that demonstrates my expertise in my field be the wiser move? 

Too late for uncertainty, I finally gave notice and selected another door to try out.