In the Arena
To improve my writing, Cerebro told me to write an emotive piece on the feeling of "exhilarating uncertainty". Halfway through writing this, I realised it's been a month since quitting my job. Great time to post!
I didn't have any second thoughts when I walked out the door, but it did feel unexpectedly bittersweet. Formally shaking hands with everyone I had spoken to in the office, almost like we were downgrading from teammates to acquaintances by the second. Some people I did not regret missing. Others surprisingly so.
It's very ironic that the last Amazonian to walk me out the door was a teammate I didn't get along with. But at that point, you realize all of that resentment feels empty. You see, as soon as you send that resignation, the virtual constructs around you that felt important at the time begin to fall away. The need to know someone because of their use to you in your project or space. The opportunities to learn what a newly launched service is about. Even the ambient chatter around you just becomes background noise. Its value goes to zero. So when I walked out the gate and blurted, "I wish you the best", I really meant it.
After that cocktail of emotions, I thought I would be greeted immediately with relief. But instead I felt nothing. Not positive or negative. Just…nothing. I walked down the road with similar feelings to when [REDACTED]. The feeling of self-sufficiency. "You're on your own now". No meetings to go to, code to ship, work relationships to keep. I was now free of that, but it meant I had no immediate purpose.
But this was what I was wishing for, right? The ability to make my own decisions. Put my own fate in my hands. See what I had to offer the world. I let those emotions settle as I headed for a free coffee with Gowtham and Thomas. After the coffee, that feeling popped up again and I had to take it out by grinding it at the State Library. That's where I have been most of my days.
When I submitted my resignation, you can say the emotion was exhilarating uncertainty. When I left those doors, I would now describe my days as turbulent and engaged in the arena.
I've written a one-liner summary of my day every day since leaving, writing what I did and a letter-grade (S, A, B, C, D). Looking back, no three days are the same. My worst days come from bad decisions the night before or when I get demotivated from failing really hard. My best days come from seeing 10x improvements in the things I did yesterday. It's just vicious and virtuous cycles every week. I didn't expect my days to be all sunshine and rainbows but the whiplash here is something else.
At the start of this year, I made a goal to make my first online dollar. The dollar should be sustainable, not from a friend, and earned in a fulfilling way (a new condition to filter out get-rich-quick schemes).
I'm in the arena because now I'm fighting for that first dollar. Everything I do now is in direct service to achieving that goal, or to keep myself well. An average day is hitting the kettlebells then sinking 8 hours at the State Library until I get home around 9pm. I didn't realize the sheer volume of time and effort I needed to build up the skills for that elusive dollar. I spend countless hours climbing skill trees only to fall to the bottom when I encounter a new one. The note below is something I wrote to map this out mentally. In bold are all of the skills you need to sell.
And this is only for selling! It's the other half to making a good product, which gets itself into product design, UI/UX, product-market fit, and code. Every day I build myself up, get skill issued by something new, then repeat tomorrow.
As intense as it is, I love what I'm doing. I am joyfully engaged in the arena. I'm trying to do this properly, learning everything sustainably, because I want this to be my life. By "first dollar", I really mean making enough to do this for the rest of my life. I love the variance in my journey. I always describe it to my friend: working in a big company is being a crewman, somewhere down in the bunkers. You are still important, you have very specific responsibilities, but you don't actually have all the other skills to steer the ship. Starting something of your own means you get to, no, you HAVE to do everything in your own little boat. Sure you have to scrub the decks and do the dirty work you otherwise wouldn't previously. But you get to right your own ship, and that's the beauty of it.
My friend Kevin once jokingly said quitting Amazon was the biggest thing that happened in my life. Steph found it offensive, I found it hilarious. It makes sense from his perspective. It's definitely the biggest event since I graduated and started working there, which was when I met him. But this is just the inciting incident in a story. There is so much in store for myself to surprise him with. I'm giddy just thinking about it. It just needs more time and patience. I can't describe exactly what's going to happen but I can't wait to get there.