Pivotal

It may just be my perception, but it seems like for the last six months or so, a prevailing theme of the podcasts and videos I watch is knowing when to make big life changes – when to “pivot”, so to speak. How to know when to quit writing, or quit one job to move to something else, or make a major pivot from one life direction to something completely different…I can’t remember a podcast or reflective type video I’ve watched lately where that sort of thing isn’t mentioned at least tangentially.

I know I’m not particularly happy with where I’m at in life right now, so as I said, it might be my perception and I’m just seeing/hearing what I’m already thinking about. I’m not in a position to make a major life change (golden handcuffs, anyone?), but I have been thinking about and moving towards several major smaller changes that I feel like I *can* affect in order to improve my level of overall contentedness.

I actually envy those people who are not so “risk averse” and can make fairly big life changes when they want to (also, I’m guessing they’re probably better at managing money than I am). But, I have a good life, I make a good income, and I have a lot of perks that go with this lifestyle, so I hate to complain. I chose this, and I keep choosing it, but I do often dream of the “road not taken”. The grass is always greener and all that.

2025 is going to be a year of profound change in a lot of ways. My work environment is undergoing several major shifts (that actually started six months ago, but there are a couple rather significant things happening once the calendar flips over). Work is where I spend 8 hours a day, five days a week, and what happens there affects my personal life fairly significantly in terms of the energy and creativity I have left afterwards.

The recent changes have left me both drained at the end of the day, and a little off balance mentally as I’m trying to keep up and adjust, hence the lack of blogging (or anything else that requires a lot of thought after work hours, honestly). But I’ve made some personal changes and set some boundaries I should have set awhile back that are slowly allowing me to find some equilibrium. I’m cautiously optimistic that things will keep improving, and I have a decent chunk of time scheduled out of the office around the holidays that will allow me the space and quiet I need to create a good plan and new routines for the new year.

I’ll be 50 in January, and while I’m quite pleased about having made it to where I am at this point in my life, it also feels like a good time to pivot, even if it’s not quite a 180 degree turn. Call it a mid-life crisis if you will, but there’s something to be said for looking back at what one has accomplished, and then looking forward and making adjustments as necessary to course-correct or just find/blaze a different trail.

Perhaps that’s why I keep seeing/hearing people talk about change, and redirecting, and doing something new, not being afraid to quit, etc. A lot of the people I’m hearing that from are in the same age-range as I am, so perhaps it’s more a function of reaching this particular time in our lives. That would certainly make sense, and it’ll be interesting to see how (or if) a mass generational “pivot” is in play.

If my efforts to re-balance work out, I’ll be back to blogging regularly again soon. I’m not sure if anyone reads blogs any longer, and I’m not interested in making this into a “journalistic endeavor”, professional publication, or Substack-like thing. My personal blog has always been just a personal web-log (though I’m not above posting links to my work, obviously). But for whoever might be interested in what I’m up to, what I’m thinking and where I’m at, I’m happy to have you along for the ride.

You never know when things might get interesting around here, but one major goal of mine is to stop overthinking the writing, including this blog. No more worrying about whether it’s too long, or too short, or too writing-focused, or not writing-focused enough, or whether there are enough paragraph breaks, or photos, or whatever. I’m just going to write, and publish, and if it speaks to people, great! If not, they’ll ignore it.

And we’ll all live happily ever after. Or happily enough, anyways.


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