“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
Steve Jobs
I remember the day as if it was yesterday.
A Saturday morning in early October.
7:00am.
Clear and cool.
Through my hermetically sealed windows on the 18th floor, I could see the sun glistening on the Connecticut River.
The leaves of a glorious New England autumn on full display.
All of the glitz and glitter from graduating from law school, taking the bar exam, and starting out at a prestigious Big Firm had faded away.
The succession of 70 hour weeks and mandatory Saturdays had begun to wear me down.
I looked across my mahogany desk piled high with files to the credenza with my time sheets on which I marked the value of my existence in six minute increments.
I thought about the long day ahead.
I thought about the harvest festival fair that I’d miss with my kids.
This beautiful fall day that I’d spend working on a brief that would suck my soul.
And I asked out loud (to no one because no one was listening): Is this the way it will be for the next thirty or forty years?
Indeed, it was 25 years before I freed myself from what one therapist called “the golden handcuffs.”
Yes, I made a lot of money.
I got the corner office.
I got the nice car, and the sprawling house in the suburbs, and the big boat.
Yes, I’d become a “success.”
But I wasn’t happy.
Truth be told: It wasn’t easy to escape.
In fact, it was pretty scary.
But now, I wake up every single day, excited and on fire about the work I get to do.
I don’t have many regrets. But I do regret not having the courage to pivot sooner.
Because life is short. And joy is your birthright.
If your heart is telling you that it’s time for a new chapter, listen.
