The Rapid Log · 03
My grandmother-in-law is a fiercely independent wonder with a sharp mind and an impeccable memory. For her 98th birthday, my in-laws made her a unicorn cake, because — exactly.
When she comes over for dinner, her great-granddaughters (3 and 5) are thrilled and our evening is full, until finally the sleepies kick in (for all of us) and we wind down with a little quiet, contemplative tea time.
She has lived a lot of years, and sometimes I drift off trying to imagine what that must be like, but of course I fall way short — I have to, because there’s simply no way of comprehending all of the life experiences, joys, sorrows, wins, and losses that accumulate in that time, until you’ve experienced it.
Over this particular tea, we got to talking about my recent career shift into writing. This is normally a topic I’m excited to talk about, but this time, I felt a little anxious.
She herself had spent some time in accounting (which, knowing her, was probably only one of three jobs she held down simultaneously). She comes from a world where a stable career and a busy, full life are respected. So when we started talking about my recent departure from public practice accounting to write… my inner critic started bracing — as though I was about to confess a major transgression.
Why on earth would you leave the stable career you had spent 13 years building just to fool around?
But it was only the inner critic. To my delight (and admittedly, great relief), she was interested in what exactly I do: how does one write for a living, and how can you even figure out what to write — you just pull it out of the air?
Yes, exactly — and I slowly felt cumulative validation for my creative work creeping back in.
Then came the big question, the one that lingered long after the night was over:
So why’d you do it?
Except she wasn’t asking why I left accounting. She was wondering, given how much I love writing and creative work, why I had bothered going into accounting in the first place.
That’s a story for another day, I think.
But what came up for me was the underlying question that created the anxiousness in the first place:
Was it a mistake?
When I transferred into the accounting program in university, it always felt like a little inside joke with myself. In fact, I often joked that I went into accounting ironically.
And honestly, it stayed that way the entire time — ironic and misaligned.
But not a mistake.
I knew logically that accounting wasn’t my academic forte, but I didn’t have that true inner knowing about what felt aligned and what didn’t yet. I can talk about it now because I spent 13 years cultivating that knowing by exploring the edges of alignment inside and outside of my career.
You make the best choices you can with what you know at the time — and the information is never perfect.
My choice was to take a strategic step into a field that challenged me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. And although it created a lot of friction, it also taught me more about myself, broke limiting self-beliefs, and created the financial know-how and runway I’d need to eventually do what I do now.
And of course, I would never have been able to write this blog without that experience.
I found that clarity came from sitting in stillness and exploring the edges of discomfort until the knowing set in. There were many times in my career that I thought of exiting (thank goodness for my amazing coworkers). But if I left then, I would have been walking away.
By waiting until I truly knew, I wasn’t just stepping out of misalignment — I was stepping into alignment.
The trick was feeling out where the threshold was — like trying to pinpoint where a shadow bleeds into light by exploring the liminal space in between.
I don’t know if I believe wholeheartedly in mistakes — just experiences that help you discover what alignment is, or that move you closer to it.
Thank you for reading!
If the struggle to sit in a career that doesn’t quite fit resonates, you might also enjoy: How to Stay Grounded During Busy Seasons: Start with Your “Why”
And if you’re feeling the pull between career and creativity, you’re invited deeper into the blog: Choose Your Creative Path
Finally, I should add: this was entry 3 of The Rapid Log — a container for journal-style blog posts. More on that here: Adventures in Writing: A Personal Permission Slip & Introducing The Rapid Log
Other posts in the series:
- Sweet Synchronicity and Sticky Hands – a cute story from watching my daughters have a synchronistic moment
- Another Cold and Flu Season — and Another Experiment in Slowing Down – which plays with the question, what if it all works out?
