Life is a Journey

For a long time, I believed in meritocracy.

I believed that if you worked hard, kept learning, and showed up with integrity… you would be rewarded.

And I did all of it.

I was the employee who:

• stayed late (and didn’t complain)

• worked weekends—sometimes happily

• paid for my own coding courses

• invested in learning simply because I loved it

I wasn’t doing it for recognition.

I genuinely believed in growth. In contribution. In being part of something meaningful.

And the organizations I worked for benefited from that.

But over time, something didn’t add up.

My skills were being used… but they weren’t translating into:

• financial abundance

• job security

• or real upward movement

I started to notice the gap.

Then life—and the economy—made it impossible to ignore.

A recession hit. Like many others, I experienced furloughs.

Then came an organizational reorg.

The culture shifted.

And suddenly, I didn’t fit anymore.

Not because I wasn’t capable. But because the system had changed.

That was a hard realization:

You can be valuable… and still not be valued.

And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

I knew I needed a way out.

So I started exploring what that could look like.

I worked with a career coach. I started asking different questions—not just about roles, but about ownership.

And then something unexpected happened.

I was part of a mass layoff.

I still remember that day clearly.

I went to lunch with my mentor, and she looked at me and said:

“You are too happy.”

And she was right.

Because I had already started letting go.

What looked like an ending… felt like confirmation.

That moment marked the beginning of something new.

Moving into contract work changed everything.

I was exposed to:

• different organizations

• different leadership styles

• different ways of working

And for the first time, I experienced a level of financial stability and flexibility that I hadn’t felt as a full-time employee.

Not perfect.

But different.

And more importantly—

More aligned.

But even that came with its own realization.

Because contract work gives you exposure…

But not always control.

And now, we’re entering another shift.

One driven by AI.

One that is quietly reshaping how work is valued, assigned, and retained.

That’s what I’ll be exploring in my next few posts.

Not from a place of fear.

But from a place of truth.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:

Security doesn’t come from being needed. It comes from being positioned.

If you’ve ever felt like you did everything right… and it still didn’t lead where you expected—

You’re not alone.

And you’re not wrong for wanting more.