Dealing with Conflicting Life Signals

Quick recap from last time: it’s been tough, but I’ve had a few moments recently where I felt myself giving into anger and was able to channel my better self to find compassion. It’s definitely work and I’ve definitely had moments in which I was unsuccessful, but I’ll take the few successful attempts as an early win for my 2024 intentions.

Now, onto the next thing…

Generally speaking, I’ve learned some valuable lessons in each decade of my adult life. In my 20’s, I learned the value of cultivating multiple, independent support groups who could help with different aspects of my life (e.g., work friends for work stuff, college friends for personal life issues), as well as the overall power of community in helping me deal with challenging circumstances. In my 30’s, I learned not to plan too far in advance or make too many long-term predictions, as you never know what can happen. While this lesson stemmed from some significant professional and personal developments in my mid-30’s (more on that below), Chelsea’s passing occurred the week after I turned 40, marking the most significant, and probably cruelest, example of this particular life lesson.

As I approach my mid 40’s, I’m beginning to pick up on what I think will be a key lesson of this decade: how to make high-stakes decisions when I’m getting conflicting pieces of information (i.e., life signals) about what to do.

Maybe I’m retconning past experiences, but my sense is, in my 20’s and 30’s, there was a certain degree of alignment between decisions influencing different parts of my life. Case in point: in my early 30's, Chelsea was wrapping up grad school and thinking about her strategy for the academic job market. And around that time, her job search looked like it might force us to make a difficult choice, as I liked our home town and was pretty happy with my current job. I wasn’t wild about the possibility of moving if she got an out-of-state offer, which was the likely outcome for a national job search. Of course I wanted to support Chelsea’s career, but I was staring down the prospect of having to hit pause on my career, which was going quite well at that point in time.

But then a funny thing happened: over the next 2 years, my job satisfaction dipped, I lost the desire to stay at my organization for the long haul, my feelings on our home-town soured a touch, and all of a sudden the idea of a national job search and moving across the country became much more palatable (which is what ultimately happened). So at the end of the day, life circumstances aligned in a way that helped Chelsea and I find harmony between our personal and professional choices.

Another example from when our daughter was born: like most places, childcare in our town was less than ideal, so we were understandably worried about how we might take care of our little girl when she was born. Chelsea was doing great with her career and wanted to keep the throttle down, but when she got pregnant I was in a role that I really enjoyed and hoped to continue.

But then a funny thing happened: a few months before E was born, my organization unexpectedly shut down, I had a bit more time on my hands, and the possibility of being a full time, stay-at-home dad became much more realistic. As with Chelsea’s job search, I felt like we never had to make a truly difficult decision about work and life because the circumstances just sort of lined up. And of course, that stint as a stay-at-home dad was critical in building a relationship with my daughter that could withstand the shock of her mother’s passing. Another example of experiencing harmony in our lives.

During our daughter’s first few years, Chelsea and I would often sit around and talk about how lucky we’d been that the circumstances had aligned so often in critical moments: these sorts of family/career decisions are notorious for creating conflict that can break relationships, and we’d sort of drifted through them with minimal impact. I also want to state unequivocally just how privileged we were that I could stay at home with my daughter full time; not a lot of folks get to do that comfortably. But that combination of luck, privilege, and alignment meant that we were able to make our significant life and career decisions rather smoothly.

Then Chelsea died, and everything went to s&^t.

Since then, my life has been a sea of incoherence, chaos, and conflicting life signals. One day, one aspect of life is good; maybe E is having a positive day making progress in her grief work; but then I get a phone call about a complicated estate issue that has huge logistical and financial implications, making it harder for me to chart a path forward. Chelsea was the primary bread winner, so when she died I needed to make enough money to keep the ship afloat, but have a job with enough work/life balance that I could still be there for my daughter. So on Wednesday, I think I have a good sense of how much money I need to make but on Thursday, I get news about the estate matter that shifts the calculus dramatically, and it’s back to the drawing board on the job search.

That sort of thing happened a lot in the first 18 months and created a tremendous amount of stress, adding to the existing stress loads associated with the shock of the loss. There’s no way I would have been able to navigate that phase of life without help from my community (good thing I learned that lesson in my 20's…).

Fast forward a few years, things have stabilized a tremendous amount, but I’m still feeling a lack of coherence and am getting conflicting indicators from different aspects of my life. I’ve got some big decisions to make in the next few years, but I don’t feel like life is in sync quite as much as it was with the previous big life moments I described above. I feel a certain degree of tension, or conflict, and I long for the days of Chelsea’s job search where the process just felt more harmonious.

Again, while I’m neither religious nor spiritual, I do find that comfort in certain spiritual and religious concepts. Last time, it was the Christian notion of loving your enemy that I learned growing up in the Presbyterian church; this time, it’s the Daoist concept of wu wei, or effortless action. The idea is that you just sort of let things happen, acting only when life is in balance; if you force action, it creates tension, making both present and future actions more difficult. I’ve always found this concept compelling, and have tried to reference it when exploring the trajectory of my life.

Right now, I feel like things are out of balance, and that there’s tension that I need to resolve. While my personal/family life is in a great place, I’m struggling professionally, and I don’t know what action, if any, to take. Will action resolve the tension, or should I just stick it out and wait for balance to return? Both options have risks, I’m getting different sets of signals telling me to make different choices , and it’s not clear which set of signals is correct.

So back to the theme of the piece: how do I make choices with big impacts when I’m getting conflicting life signals on what to do?

It’s possible that there might be a ‘door C’ option out there somewhere (more on that later, but the basic idea is that when you’re faced with what you think is a Door A/B option, you can sometimes be creative and find a ‘Door C’ option; Chelsea was really good at that), but I’m not in a position where I can find it at the moment.

Maybe that’s the argument for waiting it out? If there’s not an obvious choice at the moment, waiting might provide more time to reflect and expand the space of possible decisions? But does waiting further entrench my current position and make it harder to make a change later?

Or maybe I should cut myself some friggin slack, accept that, even 3.5 years later, I’m still going to be feeling the impacts of a seismic loss, celebrate the progress I’ve made with my daughter, and embrace the struggle as a sign of that progress. The fact that I can angst about my job means I’ve really come a long way in my journey…