Last year I wrote 2,000 words justifying a career change I never made.
The essay had everything: a Terence McKenna quote about courage, seven numbered reasons why digital marketing was my calling, even a Naval Ravikant citation about applying mathematics to reality. I wrote about "the rare intersection of art and logic". I called good taste my "competitive edge”. I spent three paragraphs explaining how my personality was perfectly suited for this pivot.
Then I kept my government job.
The Architecture of Almost
If you've ever written a pros and cons list that mysteriously had fifteen pros and two cons, you know this dance. Some of us don't just talk ourselves into things--we build entire castles of logic to house decisions we're not actually going to make.
My digital marketing manifesto was a masterpiece of intellectual procrastination. Instead of updating my resume, I crafted philosophical arguments. Instead of networking, I perfected my rationale. The more elaborate my reasoning became, the less likely I was to act on it.
The tell was in the structure itself. Real decisions don't need a numbered list of justifications. They need one good reason and some guts…
Status Limbo
Buried in paragraph eight was the real fear: "pivoting to digital marketing will leave me in a bit of status limbo".
Not failure. Not poverty. Status limbo.
The secure job had a title people understood. The new path had question marks. And apparently, I'd rather be clearly placed in a hierarchy I didn't love than ambiguously positioned in a field that excited me.
This wasn't about courage or cowardice. It was about how deeply we internalize the need to be easily categorized. "What do you do?" is such a simple question unless your answer is "I'm figuring it out".
The Taste Trap
I spent 200 words on how my "good taste" would be my differentiator in marketing. As if taste alone has ever been enough. As if knowing the difference between good and bad could substitute for actually making things.
This is the curse of the aesthetically aware but creatively challenged. We can critique with precision but create with hesitation. We know exactly why something doesn't work but freeze when asked to build something that does.
Good taste without execution is just theory.
The Revolving Door
I think that these almost-leaps are like practice runs for your brain. Each elaborate justification, each perfectly reasoned essay, each detailed plan you don't execute--they're all test flights for changes you're not ready to make.
Some people need to think out loud. Some need to write it down. Some of us need to build entire theoretical frameworks for lives we're not going to live. Yet.
What I Actually Learned
My seven reasons for changing careers were all true. They were also all irrelevant. The real question was never "Can I justify this?" but "Am I willing to be uncomfortable?" The answer, dressed up in 2,000 words, was no. And that's fine (in hindsight).
The document still lives in my drafts folder. Not as evidence of my own weakness, but as proof that even our unlived lives teach us something. Mainly that the distance between who we think we should be and who we're willing to be is where all our real work lives.
The McKenna quote about nature loving courage sat at the top of my essay while every paragraph after it was hesitation in disguise. The real sting isn’t that I didn't change careers, but that I discovered something uncomfortable about myself in the process. All those stories I'd told myself about being bold, different, willing to leap--they crumbled against the simple test of actually leaping.
In the end, the words told the truth I couldn’t: I wasn’t ready. Next time I catch myself writing a whole novel to justify a decision, I’ll recognize it for what it is--avoidance, not preparation.