Things haven’t been great lately, but while talking some of this out with friends can be helpful, some things are simply easier to write.
I’m going to try to organize these thoughts, but they could still be scattered.
The day before my first certification test in December, less than a week before Christmas, I got a text from my dad. “Mom’s been in an accident, I’m heading to the hospital now”. I was already stressed out of my mind trying to cram some last-minute review in and I got hit with that. I remember putting my phone down, thinking for a minute or two, and saying, “I can’t do this right now”.
As the details came out over the following few days, it became clear she was going to be okay. But she was definitely in the hospital and would be for awhile, requiring several surgeries. Amazingly, I passed my certification that next day, and it was like a tremendous weight lifted from me, freeing me to worry about my mom, as odd as that sounds. I made it out to see my family a few days after Christmas, and while I’m so glad I made it, nothing ever prepares you to see one of your parents in a hospital bed.
I have a few main reflections on this, besides the key ‘life is short’ spiel. I know. I get it. Understanding that life is short was a major part of why I chose to take a year off. I don’t need any lectures from the universe on that. I get it. But things were hard enough for my parents. My mom’s job skills had earned her decent money here, but they don’t translate well to other companies, so she took a massive pay cut when my parents moved. My dad was working, but he has a medical condition that flared up and basically made it impossible to work. So after my mom’s accident, my dad’s social security was the only thing really keeping them afloat (that I’m aware of), and praise God for that. Like…I get that social security is controversial. I get that it’s philosophical. And political. And ideological. And yet, I can’t express how thankful I am that they at least have that. But moreover, my parents worked their asses off for years to get out of debt, and they succeeded. They had a few years to coast, maybe save more for retirement, etc, but now this. I don’t know what the medical bills look like, but they sound bad. Because my mom was working through a temp job doing low-wage manual labor, I don’t believe she had health insurance (it was at least a good place to work, and she enjoyed it). To think that they clawed their way out of debt after 10+ years just to be faced with this…it just changes something inside of you. I hate to sound like a leftist, and I was already biased on this subject, but this whole idea of “hard work” being salvific sometimes just strikes me as something drummed up by the rich to keep the poor cranking out those profits, and many conservatives just gobble it up. My parents worked their asses off. Mom was pulling in as much overtime as she could. And they succeeded. But now…this.
[To be fair, probably the toughest part about “hard work” is that it means something different to everybody. What I’m doing right now might be considered “hard work”, but I wouldn’t phrase it that way, because “hard work” means something else to me that I find quite negative like workaholism, hustle culture, cultural brainwashing, etc.]
I just want my parents to be able to retire in peace and dignity. I want them to be able to rest, and not worry where the money is coming from. And I know that nothing is guaranteed in this life, and no amount of protesting and blame-games can make the things in your life “work out” as perfectly as you hope, but it puts a knife in my heart wondering how my parents’ final decades will play out.
And it isn’t lost on me that I have plenty of money to help, but I’m also at the end of my cash, pulling money from my Roth IRA contributions as I struggle to shift careers. And it’s not that there isn’t a giant wad of 401k money to tap, only that it costs a 10% penalty just to access, and that’s all before paying tax on the amount you withdraw. If I hadn’t taken a year off, I would have tons of cash to send to help them out, yet I really feel that taking a year off was the right thing to do. I don’t think my parents really want any of my money, but I feel like my inner child is hiding in a corner, scared about what to do, while the fear of unemployment looms on the horizon and the weight of learning all of these things for shifting careers occasionally explodes and makes me want to throw up.
But on that front….
Back in the fall, when I started realizing I had no passion for software development, and I started getting these crazy dreams that seemed to hint and changing careers, I took a lesson from the annals of experience and decided that while there was no way in the world I would ever be able to sit down and figure out the perfect way to shift careers, I could at least pick a reasonable path and stick to it, which I did: I passed both tests I set out to pass, and I studied many things in-between. I learned more than I ever really imagined.
But it never feels like enough. I wanted to pursue a third certification, but I had this dream where I cracked two eggs into a bowl, and the third one I cracked was rotten. I scooped the rotten egg and its contents into a separate bowl but then thought, “Oh, I should have scooped the good ones into a bowl instead”. This was before I had even passed my first test, and the message was amazingly clear: don’t focus on a third test, which is no good right now, just focus on the first two. If you’ve never seen how God can speak through dreams, you’d think this was insane, but it’s not. I plan to do more certifications later this year, but any effort to cram more in now feels a lot like striving, which I did last time, and it didn’t work out so well. The odd truth is, the two certifications I earned actually open several doors, just not in the same way experience and higher-level certifications do. They may not even have been the *best* certifications to earn, but I believe they were still *good* choices, and most importantly, I stuck it out and finished them, which is 100 times better than studying random crap and hoping it all coalesces to help you get a job. That has to count for something.
I have to realize, though, that the extra time it’s taking me is a not truly a money issue. It’s possible I could move as planned and go the next year without a job and just might still be in the black by around 6 figures. So…crocodile tears, I guess. There’s no guarantee, of course, but I feel a lot of stress because I told everyone my plan was to move in January, and that sure as hell didn’t happen. Every month I spend extending my year off bites a chunk out of my savings. If I’m being really honest, I think it just bruises my pride. For years, my big goal was to reach $300k invested, which translates to a safe withdrawal of $1,000 per month using the 4% rule. But all of that has changed. God hasn’t called me overseas, and probably never will. I’m not called to academia, either, which was made wonderfully clear this past year. Rather, I’m staring at a career I might actually enjoy and want to do even beyond any point of financial independence. I really think this is about taking one step back so I can potentially take 3 or 4 steps forward. But my goodness is it painful right now. Partly, I think I just need to accept that the landscape has changed. Damn your goals, this money was here for the real shift. They are spiritual goals now, goals of calling. And if this is in fact what I’m called to, as I think it is, then the money doesn’t really matter right now, because it comes with the territory, and the possibility of earning way more down the line. But this means I have to accept it for what it is. And if it costs to get there, then the price is probably worth it.
Of course, there are a lot of Myers-Briggs Feeler types who suck at analysis and want to discourage it in everybody else. I don’t have to take their crap [I’m kind of joking, Feelers still play an important role in the world]. The thing is, God wouldn’t tell me what to study back in November. It was like he was letting me strategize what made the most sense. “The basics”, I decided. Because back when I was a rookie software developer, not being able to prove my knowledge of the basics cost me several jobs. If you prove you know the basics, you dramatically increase the likelihood someone will take a chance on you. So…I chose two certifications I knew would give me the basics and prove I knew something about them. Then I supplemented those with a few technologies to build upon those foundations.
The other day, though, I experienced something of a mini-breakdown feeling crushed by the weight of all the books I had bought over the past year. I wanted to start donating books to take them off my shoulders, but I added up how much I had spent on everything this past year and was shocked to find a sum around $800-900 [not all were tech books]. Holy crap. They are all good books with lots of great info, and I had to calm down and decide that what I really needed was to just focus on one or two at a time and not let the pressure I put on myself crush me. They are literally just books, they have no authority over me. But they have great info, if I have the patience and dedication to attack them one by one.
I knew all of this would be hard. It is, as expected, very analogous to the circuit I hiked in the fall. I think I wrote about that in this blog, but I went back to the Deep Bowl of my favorite valley, which is barely accessible, then came back on the other side, where there are absolutely no human paths, planning to cross back over in an area I had crossed many years before. Going around in this way is insanity, and I had to use my GPS to navigate the willows on the other side of the valley, just to reach the familiar spot, which I unexpectedly found flooded from beaver dams. I almost worked myself into a panic about what to do. I could go back [return to software development] and be fine, but it would take a very long time [years of lost knowledge from experience], or I could plod forward, as scary as it was. The strange truth was, the water was lukewarm and not even a risk if I needed to get wet [dip into my savings]. The other “shore” was like 100 feet away [I can see very clearly where I plan to be, and it isn’t terribly far], but I first had to realize that those beaver dams are super strong and can easily support a person crossing the willows [the path is there, but you have to step out in faith]. I almost stepped into the water accidentally at one point [???], but was ultimately fine. I picked the most reasonable path forward that I could find, and made it over without even getting wet, which absolutely shocked and amazed me, how in the world I pulled it off. It was an experience that really shook me, but I also knew that none of that fear had been necessary. I just wondered why I had felt God had inspired me to do it? Something so crazy? And so much stress? I did find some pretty sweet ruins back in the bowl, and finally got to experience the forbidden side of the valley, before possibly saying goodbye to it forever, since I’ll be moving away. By crossing, I saved a lot of time. Only when I was almost back to my car did I need to turn on my headlamp.
I feel like I’m somewhere in the middle of that marshy stream right now. The fight or flight response has settled on ‘fight’ and there’s only one way forward.
But there are times I still want to throw up.