Is blowing up your life as an adult worth it?
Reinventing yourself takes way too much time, and unfortunately, money
The Way of Work explores stories of where we fit in the world of work. This is part of the series, How to Be Irrelevant: creativity and identity after the hunger to be impressive wears off.
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Do you remember the ending of The Truman Show? It’s such a great ending:
[spoilers, obviously]
Truman (Jim Carrey) goes through hell in order to escape the literal bubble he’s living in, despite the world’s creator, Christof (Ed Harris), making every attempt to keep him inside it. In the end, Truman bows, delivers his famous line, and steps through the door. Except there’s one more shot, right before the credits, that you probably forgot.
First, let’s rewind through the ending’s full flurry of emotions:
Triumphant → Truman sailing away after he beats the artificial storm,
Surprising → his sailboat runs into the world’s wall,
Hopeless → he bangs his fist against the wall/sky,
Hopeful → he finds a staircase and an exit door (are you following the metaphor yet?)
Before he walks through the door to nowhere, there’s this pivotal conversation between Truman and Christof that could’ve been the transcript of the debate inside my head after I decided to leave the corporate world. Here’s Truman finally asking the mega questions he probably doesn’t want the answer to:
“Who am I?”
“Was nothing real?”
Christof, the douchebag, totally deflects, saying this in response:
“Listen to me, Truman. There’s no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. [...] You’re afraid. That’s why you can’t leave.”
Then Christof ends on this killer line, which I swear someone said to me when they wanted me to come back to work:
“You can’t leave Truman. You belong here.”
Of course, our hero doesn’t fall for the seduction (thank god). Instead, he delivers his classic line:
“In case I don’t see ya… good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!”
<then bows>
<then turns and takes a bold step through the door>
End of movie!!! YAY!!!
We’re rooting for Truman here because we like to think we’d do the same.
Oh yeah, we’d walk right through that door triumphant, head held high, breaking society’s walls, waving goodbye to all the douchebags, adding one last jab in for fun.
We would… wouldn’t we?
But wait! There’s one more shot that you might have forgotten, right before the movie cuts to credits. It’s two security guards staring at a blank screen, after the show within the show cut offs:
Guard 1: “You want another slice?”
Guard 2: “No, I’m okay.”
Guard 1: “What else is on?”
Guard 2: “Yeah, let’s see what else is on.”
Guard 1: “Where’s the TV guide?”
This. This is the moment I want to talk about.
Because after Truman makes his triumphant exit… the world moves on, but I guarantee you that Truman hasn’t.
If you ever decide it’s time to click the “reset” button on your entire life,
you know, rip apart what you used to be and used to know in favor of black hole in the wall: then god bless you.
You’re the hero… for like 10 seconds. Then you’re not. Then you’re standing alone on the other side of a door that leads to nowhere.
To begin with, the reset probably wasn’t even your idea. Most don’t volunteer willingly for this type of thing. You got pushed out: laid off, burned out, life blew up, whatever. You never really wanted this; you wanted life to go right from the start. Who of us wants to be in the bubble? Rebuilding now feels like a huge waste of time, and worse, an embarrassing admission that you had it wrong all this time. Whoops.
But let’s say you’re like Truman. And despite the omniscient being in the clouds voice inside your head telling you otherwise, you’ve finally summoned the gumption to actually make a change. You’re ready. Let’s go.
Well, I hate to break it to you: it’s gonna take a whole lot more from here. I know this all too well. Despite that hard work and suffering and self-doubt you overcame to claw your way to here? Well, that was just one milestone. A single step along the long journey of reinvention.
Truman’s not even close. You’re not even close.
You were a hero for that moment, but you won’t be able to claim victory until you figure out what’s on the other side of that door.
Take Truman, the moment after he steps through the door.
Think about it. Here’s a man who now has to rebuild an entire adult life from zero, with no idea who he is or where he’s headed. He escaped, but also, he’s gonna require a load of time and therapy to process what he just went through. More importantly: who’s going to pay for it? Once the fans lose interest (and they will)… then what?
I can guarantee you everything won’t be resolved after he takes a 2-week vacation or a course from an influencer he found on TikTok or he subscribes to a random guy’s newsletter.
The camera cut away right before the boring, expensive part, which turns out to be most of it. Truman’s got a killer exit line, but what he really needs is a 3-year sabbatical to figure his life out.
I’m entering year 4 of my transition/sabbatical, still waiting to know when it’s over.
When will I arrive? Have I already arrived? Will I ever?
In retrospect, my transition makes sense on a grand narrative: processed my exit → let go of old self → got lost → tried stuff → wrote a book → okay, who am I now? But at the day-to-day level, my goodness, it feels like it’s taking forever. I anticipated I’d already “be there”, with life figured out, say ~3 months after leaving.
It’s been 3 years!
Here another part tidy narratives skip: it’s a good thing my prior life funds this one. Three years of “figuring it out” has a price tag and I’ve got two kids, a mortgage, and a growing budget for strange sounding supplements. Someone has to pay for this stuff. Fortunately, that someone was a younger version of myself who stayed in the bubble long enough to pay for my escape out of it.
Ironic?
Let’s get concrete: in 3 years, I’ve made a total of $4,537.50 in income and I’ve easily spent multiples of that in expenses related to writing a blog that will probably never make money and a book that will, in all likelihood, be a loss leader… for what? Nevermind, it’s just a loss.
You won’t hear about any of this if you follow too much reinvention porn. You know, the “quit and follow your dreams” genre, where a beautiful new life is supposedly waiting for you on the other side of that door. No, transitions ain’t cheap, and you'll keep asking whether the choice to walk through was a mistake, again and again.
So should Truman walk through the door anyway?
Is blowing up his life still worth it?
Yes. He should.
Once you’re standing in front of that black door, you can’t not go through. You have to. You need to.
It’s going to take time and it may make zero sense when you run the numbers, but there’s no real good way to avoid that door. If you stay within the bubble, it may be safe and familiar, but you’ll always know, deep down, you’re inside the bubble.
Plus, the other side includes an upside that’s inaccessible by almost any other means: total self transformation.
For me, it was writing. First here, then a book (fiction… who woulda guessed?). And also it was reconciliation with my workaholic past, expansion of my definition of ambition, reorientation toward what really matters, and a dozen other big and small things that I would’ve never accessed had I not taken that step.
I wish this reinvention stuff were more accessible. You may need to adapt and find a quicker way. You may need to plan ahead. Way ahead. You may need to make major life changes, ones I didn’t have to. But who knows, maybe your other side turns out to be a cash cow, and not a loss leader like mine. That’d be nice.
Just don’t be shocked when the transition demands more years and more money than the triumphant music implied. And be careful not to compare your messy, expensive, unfilmed real life with others’ perfect transitions that are clearly staged.
It’s going to take time. It’s going to take money. But it’s still worth it.
(hopefully)
See you next time,
Rick
| Appendix: Status Foe |
Book Update: talk about stuff taking too long… I’m in the middle of evaluating publishing options, and plot twist, already drafted ~25% of book #2 👀. If you’re interested in early access/updates: see here.
Dungeon Crawler Carl: do yourself a favor and pick up this book already. I waited too long, now flying through book #3 (as a writer, I’m VERY jealous of the author).
Dave the Diver: add this to my top 10 list of “things I’m surprised I enjoy so much.”
Youth Sports Coach: after watching USMNT’s run, I’m singlehandedly going to change the future of US soccer by living vicariously though my kids. Should I update my LinkedIn?
More from the series, How to Be Irrelevant:
Thanks Rick. I appreciate the post.
It’s funny how this stuff works out, because I would not have understood the reference at all if I hadn’t watched the movie a few weeks ago for the first time, at 43.
I walked through that door to nowhere, involuntarily, almost exactly a year ago due to medical reasons I’m still dealing with after 2 decades of a construction career.
We have even made the same amount of income ($4800 for me) which came from a single painting job that I struggled through. I figured I could do painting. Everybody can paint, right.
It was painful. I kept telling myself it was normal. They had told me I should feel normal by now, so it must be normal.
Nope. I was fucking myself up.
Turns out that it was exactly what I needed. It’s like the universe or whatever label you use was telling me “Sit down, son. You got lessons to learn.”
So I did. Still do.
So I started doing my own version of a mind map using nothing but computer paper and a wall, and a pencil and pens and stuff like that.
I turned my hyper-vigilance around on myself and started analyzing my own behavior, thoughts, feelings, desires, everything. I decided that I would tell nothing but the truth, and I've slowly gotten closer and closer to actually doing so.
I was not as lucky as you were to have a younger self that made that much money. That $4,800 that I made has been long gone for a while. It was gone the week after I made it.
The only reason I'm surviving right now is due to my partner, Shannon. I don't have parents that have money. I don't have parents, for that matter. I don't have any rich relatives that are willing to slide me over a check and say, "Get it back to me when you can."
Essentially, I've had to strip myself bare of desires that cost money, cuz even with her helping me, she can't afford to give me everything I want, so my wants had to change, plain and simple.
And you know what the really cool thing is? That actually brought out creativity. When something becomes a necessity, you figure it out. You don't have a choice.
I am just barely getting started here, but I can tell you one thing for sure: I am so much happier than I was working every single day doing the same things over and over again. No time to actually slow down and use my prefrontal cortex for anything but work. I always prided myself on being a problem solver, and in the construction industry, that's a good skill to have, but I didn't realize that all that was just practice for rebuilding myself after the crash. No, not a car crash or anything. It was literally just overworking my body until it gave up, and here I am.
We shall see where all of this goes, but just know I'm right here with you.
Good luck, buddy.
Great post Rick. I’m 3 years out of corporate and still trying to figure a lot out. Have conceptual ideas more than execution. Last 6 months derailed by death and cancer in the family. Life just keeps twisting and turning, I am getting comfortable with the idea that it will just be like this. Perpetually trying to figure things out. Never really “arriving” anywhere. Then I die LOL.