Leaving my full-time job

Just in time to settle into the end of the year with a cozy holiday season

I left my VP of Engineering role in October. I have yet to update my LinkedIn and have been happily flying under the radar.

Here are some of my thoughts as I reflect on the last seven weeks. I can’t believe it’s only been seven weeks!

Redefining celebration

In October, when people asked me how I was celebrating my newfound freedom, I paused a bit bashfully because I felt like I’ve always struggled to celebrate. Like oh no, I forgot to celebrate this big change!

When I think of celebrating, I imagine parties, special trips, or an indulgent purchase. But what I realized is that leaving my full-time job and giving myself ample space to figure out what’s next is the celebration.

I did end up getting dimsum takeout for the family that night, but no meal, purchase, or trip could really compare to having a few months of guilt-free, pressure-free, and stress-free space to just be. To be able to take this time off when my internal state is such that I’m not nervously lurking on LinkedIn, feeling FOMO around job postings, or wondering if this is really a good time to be funemployed — that is worthy of celebration, and is the celebration itself!

This realization also made me wonder if, similar to different love languages, people also have different ways of celebrating themselves — and if there are some distinct categories. For some people, it might be quality solo time. For others, it might be purchasing a few items they’ve been looking forward to getting. Or a video game. A weekend getaway. A special restaurant meal.

How do you typically celebrate big life changes or milestones?

Redefining importance

I gave myself space to do things that would never have risen to be important enough while I was working full-time. I joked to a friend that the things I’ve been doing are “not important and not urgent,” referencing the lower right quadrant of the Eisenhower matrix.

I ended up buying a few bags of soil and repotting some house plants. I added compost to the garden beds. I went to Berkeley Bowl and bought lemongrass and am trying to propagate it on our windowsill so that I can plant it in the garden for infinite lemongrass. I borrowed a dehydrator from the tool lending library and dehydrated massive amounts of pears from our pear tree.

This process made me seriously reconsider what is important. These activities I ended up doing clearly are things I’m drawn to doing, and end up doing when I have the space to do them, so why did I dismiss them as unimportant? Maybe instead I could redefine importance to include things that bring me joy, even if they don’t fit into some neat path to a concrete goal.

Redefining my relationship with productivity

While I started off my funemployment doing some “not important and not urgent” things, it’s only in these last two or so weeks that I’ve really let myself sink into doing very little that I would have previously considered productive.

The first few weeks, I used a good chunk of my free time on “work-adjacent” activities — working with a friend on a group coaching program we plan to run next year, brainstorming ideas for a new newsletter. I enjoyed these activities, but they were still “productive” in the sense that they were in the realm of dabbling in things I’m interested in, so that I might have greater clarity in what to do next. The next few weeks, I played around with the idea of letting go of the need to do even those things.

These last few weeks is the first time I can remember that I’ve really let myself embrace hygge — the Danish word for the coziness and contentment that stems from enjoying life’s simple pleasures — for a longer stretch. I’m experienced it before in short stints, winter breaks in college before the new semester starts (so you really don’t have any work to wrap up), a few days here or there during holiday PTO.

Past holiday seasons, or as they say in the corporate world, Q4s, were spent wrapping up initiatives and planning for the year ahead. It struck me yesterday that it is absolutely bonkers that as a society we go completely against the natural instinct to go slow and hunker down with some blankets and hot drinks — and instead expect people to work the same pretty much throughout (with the exception of a week off between Christmas and New Years) while also taking on holiday obligations such as travel, present-buying, and all the tasks involved in creating holiday magic that all-too-often fall on women.

Thinking about this magnificent tree

Almost every day, I think about the glorious ginkgo tree in our backyard and how I aspire to be more like it. In our moderate Bay Area climate, its annual odiferous fruiting and dramatic dropping of foliage have become a welcome signal of the changing of seasons. I have many thoughts to share about it (in a draft I keep adding to), but for now, I’ll leave you with this picture.

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This is a really special time, and I’m soaking it in, baby snuggles, soups and stews, meandering neighborhood walks, voice memos with friends, friends and family visits, holiday lights, and all.

Writing regularly here has both been a source of connection and community as well as implicit pressure, especially with paid subscribers. I’ll continue to try to keep leaning into this space as one for writing exactly what I want to share, when I want to share it.

Next year will bring more focus on the figuring out what’s next front, but for now, I’m letting myself continue to put that off for 2025 Jean to work on. 2024 Jean has more not important and not urgent stuff to do (and not do).