It’s telling that so much of my writing on this site is proclamations of shifting focus from theater to tech and back. I’ve always had my fingers in many pies - fronting a cover band, live-streaming music reactions, beautifying my block - but I’ve struggled to figure out how much attention to devote to my “main thing”. 40 hours a week is a lot of time, energy, and attention to give to any endeavor when you have so many other parts of your brain that you want to nurture.
In particular, the 11th year of my software career felt more oppressive than ever. AI had changed the game so much that the act of writing code stopped being a craft and became a mind-numbing, environment-destroying conveyor belt. The world became so ugly that it made my heart ache to sit behind a computer screen and watch society decay from my window. I had entered full-on burnout, where every day required maximum effort simply to show up. And by pushing through a 40 hour work week, I drained myself of the energy to try anything else in the off-hours.
It’s like a creature inside me had slowly become dormant. Normally iridescent and colorful, he had dulled to an unremarkable slate color. He was shrunken and shriveled, a shadow of his former self. He wanted to run free, but his muscles had atrophied. He didn’t know how to fix what was wrong with him, so he slept and he slept and he slept.
I quit my job.
Not for a different job. For no job. For a blank slate. For a completely unknown future.
And as it turned out, the creature woke up. He blinked his eyes and scrunched up his toes. He stretched out and found the full length of his spine. He swallowed, parched from not being watered for so long. He noticed he was pale and grey, but he didn’t quite remember how to be anything else. He was groggy and unsure of himself, but he was finally awake. And he was hungry.
Fortunately, I knew exactly how I would feed him. I’d spend a summer reconnecting with my local community - delivering meals for folks with chronic health issues, improving the technical backbone of a bike advocacy group, going to zoning meetings, picking up trash on my block. I’d brush up on urban mobility and linear algebra with online classes. And then, in the fall, the real work would begin.
Every kid hears the constant refrain, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. As kids become teens, that question doesn’t go away. It morphs into “What do you want to major in?”, and from there it slides surreptitiously into “What do you plan on doing with your degree?”. When attempting to answer that question, it morphs yet again into “Where do you see your career going?” or the dreaded “Where do you want to be in the next five years?”. This is the refrain’s final form, its narrowest yet most potent.
I’ve spent my life battling this question. I’ve never had a satisfying answer - not due to apathy, but due to the color-shifting ability of that creature inside of me. How can I know what my life should look like five years from now, let alone two? Wouldn’t that mean slamming the door shut on any number of paths that might emerge? Wouldn’t that mean violently cutting out the periphery to focus on the one thing in the center of my vision? I like what I’m looking at, but the periphery’s beautiful too. I want to see the colors of the sunset, not just the blinding ball of gas in the middle.
I decided to go backward a few steps, toward a time when exploration is a little more encouraged. I enrolled at Community College of Philadelphia as full-time non-degree student, with four radically different classes in the fall semester and four more in the spring. I’m going wide rather than deep. I’m saying “yes” as much as possible and exploring a fuller spectrum of colors.
This isn’t some surface-level flightiness either. This is me giving 100% to all 360 degrees of my world. The laser focus will come later. Maybe I end up going into urban planning (currently the leader in the clubhouse), or physical therapy, or AI Safety, or something I’ve never even considered before. The key is not to prescribe anything too early, to stay open to all possibilities. It’s someone asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and replying “I don’t know!” with a wide grin on my face, knowing that not knowing is precisely the point.
I can already feel that creature inside me becoming stronger. With every heartbeat, curiosity courses once more through my veins. The creature is starting to change colors, pushing the slate out in favor of a bright golden-yellow, announcing its return proudly. And as his colors return, so does my hope. It is possible to un-stick yourself from the mud. Through curiosity, ambition, careful planning, and a leap of faith, you can kickstart your heart. It’s never to late to learn, to explore, to stretch, to fail, to surprise yourself, to gamble, to discover.
It’s never too late to awaken your Career Chameleon.