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Growth Isn’t Linear
It’s Messy, Human, and Worth It Anyway
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A few months ago, I was sitting at my kitchen counter at 11PM, eating a cold burger out of a takeout container.
I wasn’t particularly hungry — just too tired to cook, too wired to sleep.
In front of me was a product requirements doc I needed to go through. I’d opened it three times that night. Each time, I stared blankly at the screen, willing myself to care. Nothing landed. My brain felt foggy. My body heavy. I couldn’t shake the sense that something inside me had checked out.
What made it stranger was that just a few days earlier, I’d felt the opposite — completely alive, fulfilled even. A mentee had messaged me to say she’d landed her first project manager role. I was thrilled for her. But what really lit me up was something else: the message she sent included a note thanking me for a post I’d written. She said it gave her the push she needed to go for the role in the first place.
That hit me hard.
I realized I didn’t just want to help one individual. I wanted to create content — words, ideas, frameworks — that helped more people feel seen. Less alone. More capable of navigating their own messy middles.
