When You Look Back on Life, Will You Be Happy with the Areas You Focused Your Best Years?

The uncomfortable truth about comfort zones, missed moments, and what actually matters when you're caught in the endless grind of adulthood.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about life; the grind, how there's never enough time in a day to do all the things I want to do, and how I will never learn everything I want to learn because joy is put on the back burner for things like work, school projects and life admin.

When I made the decision to quit my job, I knew doing so would seem stupid to anyone looking in from the outside. Who walks away from security, and what they know for the unfamiliar - and somewhat uncomfortable. There are several parts to this though; I always choose my comfort zone, because it's what I know, but as you get older, the consequences of your actions have a larger reach. Now, you're not just thinking about you, and how you will eat, but rather how you will feed your kids, and put them through school.

So, that's why I gave up freelancing in the first place; I chose the mundane life of an 8-5pm, worked my butt off, giving my life and soul to a company who quite frankly didn’t deserve that kind of loyalty. While the idea had crossed my mind a few times to leave, the comfort zone always seemed plusher, and thus, I stayed there.

Until January rolled around, when I was called unreasonable in a company-wide group Whatsapp by the company director, when I queried on mine and my team's behalf, why our salaries hadn't yet been paid - 2 days later.

Here's what I learnt from the experience;

COMFORT IS AN ILLUSION.

Read that again.

While the company directors were travelling, and seeing the world, I was grinding, sacrificing time with my children and all to be told I was unreasonable when I said that my debits were being returned due to their failure to plan to pay salaries on time.

This led to asking myself, do I really want to continue giving up my best years for someone else's benefit? And I came to the following answer: I would rather be uncomfortable, tumble, fall down, dust myself off and do it again, and be proud for having tried, for having been an example to my children, and for doing it on MY terms, than to continue chipping away at my sanity, giving up endless hours, and making someone else's dreams come true, just to be called unreasonable.

And since quitting, that thought has evolved.

My husband and I have a very morbid view on life, and we discuss death quite a bit. Mainly poking fun at the idea that if he dies first, I won't bother to remarry, and will literally move to a forest, and have a herd of Rottweilers at my heels - they will take up my entire bed, and I will become the village crazy. Whereas, he says if I die first, he will send the kids to his parents and fade away. Dramatic I know. But those talks have had a serious undertone, when we factor in things like health scares; and so, it did give me reason to pause.

I would be so fucking angry with myself, if I spent every night chipping away at a to do list, chasing deadlines, and signing the next client, with the aim of building my empire, only to not have my husband by my side to enjoy it.

And so, I have started to find ways to pause and be more intentional with the right here, right now. A night out on a school night to watch comedy, watching a movie together without my laptop out, a nap on the couch feeling safe in his arms, playing games with our kids...

Money comes and goes. Things are rarely an emergency, unless you're a doctor. I am a marketer for fuck sakes, I can have a night off.

And so, when I look back on this moment, right here, right now, I want to be proud of the way I shifted from being so focused on building and instead, learnt to enjoy the view too. I want to know that I gave my best years to the things that matter the most to me.

Sort of figuring it out at thirty-ish,