Recently, I was offered an opportunity to come back to the U.S. and continue working for Google.
The job had a lot of great perks.
I’d be making more money than I am now.
I’d move to a familiar city and have a high quality of life.
I’d be closer to my family.
I turned it down.
It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in years.
The last few weeks were filled with intense deliberation – both within myself and through challenging conversations with colleagues, friends, and family. These weeks forced me to deeply examine what I want in my life right now, both personally and professionally.
In the end, I decided staying in Europe was the right choice for now.
It isn’t often that we’re faced with decisions that carry such heavy consequences. Indeed, almost everything about my life would change depending on which option I chose. Because of that, I took to writing, spending time alone, and reaching our to others as outlets to achieve greater clarity and to help me make a more objective decision.
What follows are some snippets from my thought process and writings, documented over the last several months. Full disclosure: there are some parts that are vulnerable to share, but my hope is that you will find some value in them.
Maybe you’re trying to make a tough choice in your life right now and need a structured way to approach it. Maybe you’re trying to muster up the courage to make a big change but don’t know what factors to consider. Whatever your situation, there are few better ways to help than putting pen to paper, looking inwards, and reaching out.
If you’re with me, let’s start at the beginning.
When I was offered the job, I felt an intense rush of emotions. I immediately placed myself a few months in the future. I saw myself living in a nicer flat. I envisioned my bank account ballooning to amounts I hadn’t thought of at this point in my life. I could physically smell the barbecue being fired up as I visited my family for the weekend, pulling up in a brand new car.
Life was good. Comfortable. Plentiful.
I’m not surprised that I imagined it would be this way, based on past journal entries where I would “check in” on myself:
“I feel lonely and disengaged,” I wrote a while back. “Lately, I’ve had more days where I’ve felt uncertain about life]vs. feeling capable and like I’m operating at full capacity.”
I was unhappy – very unhappy – for many months. However, being the silly extrovert that I am, few people would be able to tell. Yet one only had to read a few check-ins with myself to know a much different state existed beneath the smiling facade that showed up every day.
Having a job offer to go back to the U.S. felt like an opportunity to cast off the albatross that hung heavily around my neck.
I took a few days to speak with professional colleagues, friends, and family. I started outlining why I thought it was a good opportunity and why it made sense to accept. Little did I realize that I was falling into a mental trap – one I feel many people face all the time: I was rationalizing WHY I should do a thing, as opposed to whether or not I SHOULD do that thing in the first place.
Realizing I might be getting ahead of myself, I took a more systematic approach and started asking some tough questions.
“Why do you REALLY want to go back to the U.S., Ian?” I journaled to myself. “What’s driving you?”
I started verbalizing my thoughts in private, writing in sequence when I would reach a conclusion or when a new idea would appear.
“I’m unhappy,” I’d answer.
“Right. We’ve known that for a long time. But WHY are you unhappy?”
The first step in asking yourself better questions is not getting caught at the surface level. Your answer almost NEVER exists there.
In my case, I realized I’d been operating at surface-level decision making for many months.
“I’m unhappy here. Therefore, my answer is to go home.” That was my mantra, every day, for months on end.
But once I started going deeper with myself, I uncovered many surprising insights, some of which felt shameful to admit.
“Why are you unhappy?” I asked myself again.
“Well, I miss my family. And I feel like I do the same shit over and over again here. Every week is just work, gym, go home to my flat, watch YouTube videos, go to bed, repeat. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay, but you can change those things. You can take more of your vacation days throughout the year and see your family more often. You can join things outside of work to introduce some novelty into your week. You can book cheap travel across Europe on the weekends. Why aren’t you doing this stuff?”
This is where the rubber hit the road.
“I don’t know,” I would say out loud.
I’d list solutions to problems that plagued me for months and not have an answer for why I hadn’t acted on them. There they were, written out plain as day, like a cold slap of reality.
And there IT was – the root of all my unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life for months: me.
I was making CHOICES, every day, every week, every month, to keep myself in this state.
A fervour came over me.
“I am a victim of my own circumstances,” I wrote last weekend. “My suffering has been self-inflicted.”
I concluded my journal entry last Sunday by saying, “I will not leave my life here prematurely. I have not realized the full potential of this place, let alone myself. I will adopt a bias for action.”
A bias for action. A new mindset. The bedrock of my mental state shifted sharply, causing a rift in what I thought was the life I HAD to live. I was reminded of a quote I heard years ago:
“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than think yourself into a new way of acting.”
My decision to stay in Europe was made.
I began drafting my plan for the second half of the year. For example, I want to travel more, so I broke down the steps to make that happen: research cheap flights, book the tickets and hostel accommodations, take the necessary days off work, repeat every ~6 weeks. I also want to get involved in things outside of work (at Google, this is harder than you think), and arrived at wanting to try martial arts. Thus, I would research gyms in my area, sign up for an intro class, sign up for a membership if I like it, and attend at least two classes per week.
Simple steps, repeated consistently, which could help me be happier.
My decision was made. My plan was drafted. Now I had to send a tough email.
I arrived at work this past Monday morning, pulled up my email, and began drafting my decision to the team in the U.S.
Immediately I felt a twinge of discomfort. I wanted to shut my laptop, put it off till later, or somehow hope it would all just go away if I ignored it long enough. I felt like I was saying no to an obvious choice for a good life. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, I had to “swallow my frogs.” I had to make the hard decision.
I finished the email, clicked send, and felt a weight lift off my shoulders – the weight of many late nights and early mornings spent ruminating over the impact this decision would have on my life. It felt relieving to have made SOME kind of decision, even if I can’t say it was the best one.
Only time will tell.
— — — — —
I want to leave you with a few takeaways from this semi-organized stream of consciousness.
1. Respect the space between stimulus and response. Recognize it, seize it, and lean into it. Take your time and be intentional about the choices you make – especially if they have life-altering consequences like mine did.
2. To the extent that you can, check in with yourself every month or so. Document what you’ve done, where you’ve been, who you’re engaging with, and – most importantly – how you’re feeling. I’ve learned that human beings can be total shit at making good decisions in the moment. If you have a ledger of how your life is trending, it can help inform a more objective decision.
3. Go deep. Like, capital “D” DEEP on shit. Define the problem. Ask tough questions. Break it down. Ask more questions. Feel uncomfortable and like you want to quit. Keep going. Arrive at a set of small steps – so small you think it’s ridiculous – and do those things consistently. Magic will happen eventually.
4. Growth is generally not found in your comfort zone. My reflections and writings helped me arrive at the conclusion that I have more runway to grow personally and professionally here in Europe. One of my “acceptance criteria” for life is to “seek growth,” so remaining in a place that will force me to grow aligns with that. It helps to define what you stand for and what you’ll tolerate in life, because they will be there to fall back on when things get hectic.
5. It’s alright to not have shit figured out. I have a great job but still can’t match my socks. I doubt myself, compare myself to others, and have days where I genuinely have no fucking idea what’s going on. One of the biggest lies in the world is that everyone else around you has it figured out, and you’re some special, sad little exception. It’ll be alright. Do the next best thing, as often as you can, with what you have, and it’ll be alright.
6. Don’t feel like you have to go it alone – whether through making big decisions or life in general. You’re surrounded with amazing people with fantastic perspectives who can help you. Don’t squander opportunities to enrich your perspectives.
7. Three quotes:
“The story I tell yourself matters, so I’d better tell myself a good story.” – Nate Green
“You are more powerful than you think. Act accordingly.” – Seth Godin
“Be your unapologetically weird self.” – Chris Sacca
Okay, that’s probably enough for me tonight. I have a flight to Germany tomorrow (bias for action!).
I love you all. Like, a whole lot. You make my life something really special. If you need me or want a couch to crash on, I’ll be in Europe.
Ian
This post was originally published on May 15th, 2019
Ian Estabrook 