If there’s anything the pandemic lockdowns revealed to me, it’s that I don’t need much to live a meaningful life.
Ironically, it was also my obsession with work—the very thing that gave my life meaning back then—that eventually brought me to my knees. My health crumbled, my confidence tanked, and I had to start over, piecing together a version of life that made sense again.
Looking back, I don’t think that realization was wrong—I just placed all my eggs in the wrong basket. When I finally had to drop it, every single one shattered with it.
So, I retired from corporate.
Does that mean I’m now filthy f*cking rich, burning cash on cruises or hopping from one country to another? Hell no. But it was precisely because of that pandemic revelation that I found the courage to walk away from the glamorous grind and choose something simpler—smaller, even—but it feels real to me.
I’ve learned that I still don’t need much to make life feel worth living.
Time with my inner circle. Long conversations that mean something.
Binge-watching series like Sxccession and every J. Smith Cxmeron performance I can get my hands on.
Consulting work that keeps me comfortable while letting me help the 'right' kind of businesses (at least, to my assessment).
And long, quiet hours spent thinking and writing—inside my own head, but content to be there.
To some people, that probably sounds boring. And that’s fair.
But after more than a decade of living at the neck-breaking pace of publishing, advertising, telco, and corporate communications—after watching leaders drop dead from cardiac arrest, stroke, or some form of cancer—I think I’ve earned the right to step back.
This life may look small from the outside.
But to me, it finally feels like my own.
