The Rat Race

When I was 23, I graduated university and immediately started my first full-time position in property management. I remember the excitement of having my own title, my own office, and the sense of accomplishment that came with graduating university and stepping into the next big chapter of my life: my career.

I had done what I was supposed to do. I had gone to school, earned my degree, and landed a professional job. I was proud of myself, and at the time, I genuinely believed I was on the right path.

But a year or two into my career, something started to shift. The feeling of fulfilment I had initially experienced began to fade, and I found myself wanting more. More money. More status. More opportunities to climb the ladder.

So, after a couple of years, I jumped ship for a larger company that promised more room for growth, and a bigger paycheck. I was proud of myself for making moves and advancing my career.

What I didn’t realize was how quickly that excitement would turn into disillusionment.

The bigger opportunity came with more stress, more headaches, and a pit in my stomach every morning as I prepared to go to a job I truly hated.

Then, six months into the role, I was let go.

I went home that day and cried my eyes out. Looking back, I sometimes wonder why I was so devastated. Shouldn’t I have been relieved to never have to spend another day in a place that made me so miserable?

But I wasn’t relieved… I felt like a failure.

Everyone around me seemed to be moving forward, building successful careers and climbing their own corporate ladders. And there I was, feeling completely lost, wondering what I was supposed to do next.

At the time, I couldn’t see it, but those six months ended up being one of the greatest gifts. Midway through my twenties, I was being forced to confront something I hadn’t really stopped to consider before: What if the life I was working so hard to build wasn’t actually the life I wanted to live?

From that point on, I made a promise to myself. I would never again settle into a job that left me feeling unfulfilled, or continue down a path simply because it was what I was expected to do.

That experience prompted me to reflect deeply on what mattered to me. What did I actually want out of life? What did fulfilment look like for me? What kind of life did I want to wake up to every day?

And over the past ten years, I’ve been exploring those questions and creating a life that feels increasingly aligned with the answers.

I’ve been home with my children during their formative years, when being present and building that foundation of connection mattered deeply to me. I’ve explored several entrepreneurial ventures, each teaching me something new about myself, what I’m capable of, and what truly matters. I’ve challenged old assumptions, questioned the expectations I’d inherited, and slowly learned to trust my own inner knowing rather than blindly follow a path simply because it made sense to everyone else.

It hasn’t been a perfectly mapped-out journey. I’ve changed direction, learned lessons the hard way, and continued to discover that the things I once thought I wanted aren’t necessarily the things that bring me the most fulfilment.

But that’s the beauty of it. I’m learning that creating a meaningful life isn’t about arriving at some final destination. It’s about being willing to question, explore, grow, and make choices that reflect who you are becoming.

And that’s a big part of why I’m here, sharing what I’ve learned along the way.

Because I know I’m not the only one who has looked around at the life they’ve built and wondered why it doesn’t quite feel like their own. The one who has followed the expected path, checked the boxes, done all the things they were told would lead to happiness, only to find themselves craving something more.

I think there’s so much freedom in allowing ourselves to question the things we’ve always accepted as truth. In getting curious about the expectations we’ve inherited and the lives we’ve been conditioned to believe we should want. In giving ourselves permission to explore what genuinely lights us up, even when it looks different from what everyone else is doing.

When we begin to explore what feels true to us, when we have the courage to step outside the lines and create a life on our own terms, we open ourselves up to possibilities we may never have imagined.

With you in the remembering,

Marissa