I live to live. I don’t live to work.

For a long time, I thought the goal was to keep moving forward; chase a higher salary, climb the ladder of titles, get married, buy a house, and have 2.0 kids. I unknowingly believed that my work was my identity, my purpose, and that this constant chase made me happy.

I grew up in Toronto, and then I left it almost a decade ago. Leaving, which I never ever thought I would do, opened my eyes to a lot of the privilege I had and completely flipped my priorities and how I approach pretty much everything I let into my life now.

I have never taken the opportunities I've had for granted, and I've always felt very grateful. But I did commit about 20 years of my life to my accomplishments, and I look back on that differently now.

Was it worth it? Would I change anything? Do I regret anything?

I get asked this all the time, and my typical response is, “If I regret or change anything, I wouldn't have the life I have now.”

But if I'm being really honest, I only regret how I chose and equated what made me happy and fulfilled.

For about 20 years, I pretty much chased one job to the next. I never took a break. There was always another thing to accomplish, another level to reach, another version of myself I was supposed to become professionally.

And I was good at it. I could learn quickly, figure things out, take on complicated problems and keep going when things got messy.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was tired of the game.

Not tired of working. I actually really like working. I like having a problem dropped in my lap and getting completely obsessed with figuring it out. I like learning whatever I need to learn, experimenting, pulling things apart, putting them back together and eventually making the thing work.

What I was tired of was everything around the work.

The schedules. The hierarchy. The titles. The corporate theatre. The weird expectation that everyone should want the same version of success.

I was also tired of seeing corporate-BS memes online and laughing because they were painfully relatable.

At some point, instead of laughing along, I started thinking…I need to escape.

So I decided to take the summer off.

Well, that's a lie. I didn't really decide. My now-husband strongly encouraged it.

Besides marrying him this past summer on our boat, it was one of the best decisions I've made for myself, our relationship and our family.

I didn't, and still haven't, lined up another job. I did spend a month helping him with this business, but that’s another post that I’ll update on.

That was probably the strangest part for me. After spending most of my adult life working, I deliberately stepped away from the computer without knowing exactly what would come next.

I knew I wanted my time back. I wanted to abandon my phone, laptop, schedules and pretty much any sense of screentime.

I wanted to spend some of that time on myself, my relationships, the animals, the boat and all the other things that tend to get whatever energy is left over after work gets first dibs.

I also wanted to see what happened when I wasn't constantly organizing my life around work.

And honestly, I got my energy back.

Not just physical energy. Creative energy.

I started making things again. I started playing around with creative tools just because I could. I would find some ridiculous new tool, spend hours figuring it out, make something completely unnecessary and then immediately want to show someone.

I missed that version of myself.

My husband has been away for nearly two months working in a jungle doing something badass right now, and it gave me an opportunity to just be with myself (and Fynn and Frankie of course).

I have spent a lot of time working on the boat, which has been its own little reminder of how my brain actually likes to work. It also just felt ridiculously good to give time to my floating home that I didn’t take advantage of when we first bought it together. I've learned some plumbing, electrical, sanding, varnishing and how to use various power tools without immediately destroying whatever I'm working on.

The thing I love about boat projects is that nobody is standing over me telling me exactly how to do them - we kinda figure them out together with rapid brainstorming and some consultation with YouTube / ChatGPT. 

I gather what I need to know, and then I try something. And hey, sometimes it works, and sometimes it absolutely does not. Then I figure out why, try something else and eventually solve it.

I love that moment.

I realized that this is actually a pretty good description of the kind of work I want to do, too.

I don't want another job just because it is the next logical step in my career. I don't care about titles anymore. I don't care where I sit in the hierarchy, and I definitely don't have any interest in climbing some corporate ladder just because that's what you're apparently supposed to do.

I want a problem, and I want it to be juicy.

Give me something complicated, messy, frustrating, unfinished or slightly ridiculous. Give me something that makes my brain light up because I can't quite figure it out yet. Let me experiment, learn what I need to learn and actually own the process of solving it.

I want to be given the problem and trusted to solve it, and to work with people that hold themselves accountable to finding the best possible solution for who we are serving. 

I want enough space in my life that when the workday is over, I still have some energy left to do things for myself, and to be an exceptional best friend and partner to my husband (he’s a gem).

I think that's the bigger thing this summer gave me: a different definition of ambition.

I used to think ambition meant accumulating; more money, more responsibility, more recognition, and more things to put on the resume.

I don't think I stopped being ambitious, I think I finally stopped confusing ambition with accumulation.

I started repeating this to myself: I live to live. I don't work to live.

I want work to be part of my life, but I don't want my entire life organized around work.

I'm open to work, but I'm just being a lot more particular about what that means now.

And whatever comes next, my next step will not be a meme, and if it becomes one, I'll be the first to bow out gracefully.

#livetolive #dontlivetowork