Nothing Happened the Way I Imagined

Four months ago, I left the public service. Twenty-two years in government, and years spent wondering what would come next.

I had imagined it all. The quiet. The emptiness, maybe. The days that stretch too long. I had prepared myself for a version of my life that never arrived.

Not a single arrow says where it leads. We go anyway Photo: Jessie Maxwell-Unsplash

The gap

Nothing resembles my projections. Not better, not worse. Different.

I am not short of things to do. I choose what I invest myself in.

I do not feel cut off from the world. I can now see who is actually around me. The real network, the people who answer, who offer, who call back. I could not make it out while I was inside an organization.

And there is one thing I had put in none of my scenarios: I feel free.

What changes

In the EQ-i 2.0 model, reality testing is the ability to see situations as they are. Not as we fear them. Not as we hope for them.

It sounds obvious, until you measure the time you spend mentally rehearsing scenarios that will never happen.

I see the same mechanism everywhere right now, and a great deal of it around artificial intelligence. Capable people are preparing for a future they have never verified. They fear being replaced, so they freeze. Meanwhile, reality moves on without them.

Four months on, the desk looks like the old one. What gets decided at it does not. Photo: Engin Akyurt- Unsplash

We are creatures of emotion

Our brain loves scenarios. It produces them for free, continuously, often at night. It is an excellent fiction generator and a poor forecaster.

The good news: you do not need to be right in advance. You only need to be willing to look at what is actually happening.

What if you stopped preparing for a life that will never arrive?

Starting does not require knowing what comes next. It requires looking at what is here, now, and moving with that. Come what may.

If this resonates, write and tell me what you had imagined and what came instead. I read everything.

Rachel

What if reality were more livable than the story you are telling yourself?