The cost of doing nothing

I’ve joked here and there that doing less doesn’t mean doing nothing! You gotta do something!

Maybe joking about something isn’t the best way to take it seriously.

For a long time I did nothing. I’m not talking about with “this business.”

I’m talking about with my life.

Writing that last paragraph evoked a lot of sadness within me and I hope this can be a call to action for anyone failing to make a needed change in their life.

For years at work I was a square peg trying to jam myself through a round hole.

I chipped pieces of myself away as I repeatedly attempted to fit through this potentially lucrative hole.

I made myself miserable and the cost was enormous. 

For starters, I was ambitious and invested a lot of emotion and energy into succeeding at work. The emotional toll I put on myself as I failed to grow while watching peers succeed was detrimental, to say the least.

I bought into a model of success that prized ruthless efficiency. I lurched after the meme of sitting in a boardroom in an expensive suit as a high-powered executive who focused on the bottom line.

I bought into being squeezed into a diamond by the immense pressure of a billionaire and his deca-millionaire deputies. It all seemed so straightforward.

But I was just letting the air get squeezed out of myself and, unsurprisingly, I was suffocating. 

Updating the same reports over and over could be seen as doing less, offering me the freedom to do other things. 

But my eyes would glaze over. The urgency and importance of the work to my superiors really made no sense to me.

This lack of urgency and import invariably leaked into my life outside of work.

My boss never grew my set of responsibilities. How could he when I didn’t treat my work as urgent or with import?

It hurts to write here, but I didn’t deserve more responsibility.

As I gripped onto what was certainly a great opportunity for somebody else I continued to fall short of what my boss needed. I continued to half-ass a job I didn’t want because someone else might want my seat.

All the while my confidence diminished.

And yet my ability to grasp and communicate big ideas were well suited for the job.

My boss, who should have fired me, also did nothing. He kept me onboard.

Eventually he hired a capable banker to come in and take the tasks at hand urgently.

My confidence took another major blow. But really it was a recognition of years and years of chipping away at myself. 

I stuck around year after year for safe but unremarkable compensation.

I allowed my boss to tell me the stories he told himself about loyalty and climbing the ladder. How he wanted me to succeed. How we had some of the best seats at the company if I would just rise to the occasion. How taking a long-term view would pay off.

But those stories were meant for him, not me. 

I spent years turning away interviews for incrementally better paying jobs because to me the jobs looked like more of the same.

I was looking for a change.

I was looking to get into the driver’s seat.

When I could no longer take the pain that my comfortable life was causing me I stopped doing nothing.

I made changes. I took action. And I pursued multiple possibilities for a different future.

I studied for my real estate license, spoke to rich investors who needed help managing their empire, and pestered the CEOs of tech companies looking for that next opportunity.

And after all this, a button I clicked on LinkedIn and never thought about again ending up being the domino that fell the right way.

I was reaching out desperately to get to the next stage of my life. To escape the comfort.

The decision to leave my first full-time job was ultimately a bigger decision than the individual opportunities I pursued after the fact.

And after everything, opportunity fell in my lap at the click of a button.

It may not work this way for everyone but maybe the Universe was telling me:

First, DECIDE.

Next, Do Less.