Rebuilding Your Life Isn't Like Building It the First Time

Maybe it was the age at which I started to rebuild my life, but panic eventually struck me.

I'd previously lived a successful life on paper, but despite that, I had a feeling that something was missing. I kept asking myself,

Is this it?

What next?

I gave it up to find something that felt like my purpose. Something that erased that empty feeling.

It seemed sensible to me that I should do this at 31.

Young enough to start over. I didn't want to be doing it in my 40s, and that was inevitable in my line of work. Private flight attendants in the Middle East generally don't have a long shelf life.

Perhaps it was premature. Maybe I should have enjoyed that life for as long as it lasted.

But body clocks, settling down, structure; they were all starting to ring. So I answered the call. I took the leap. The sooner I did it, the sooner I would achieve it.

Except it wasn't so easy.

The panic wasn't just that things were hard. It was the fear that I'd given up everything for nothing. The hope, or belief, that I was eventually going to get there started to wane.

Until I questioned whether this starting level was simply going to remain my forever level.

When you're young, I believe there's a more linear trajectory. Maybe not for all. Maybe not smoothly. But generally speaking, we follow the conditioned narrative of schooling, employment, promotions, mortgage, marriage, children. And generally, we find a version of that which fits.

But when you're older, something happens…Somewhere along the line maybe you changed. Maybe you wanted more. Maybe life changed for you.

And you find yourself back at the starting point of one area- or your whole life.

Only this time it's different. This time there's awareness. Consciousness. Intention.

With maturity you either know what you want- or you don't, and you want to find it. You know what doesn't fit. You know what you won't tolerate. You know what you won't repeat.

Which brings me to the point: rebuilding isn't as easy as building the first time.

Building takes years to develop and mature.

Rebuilding is harder because choice becomes harder. Alignment becomes necessary.

It's more selective.

It's more demanding.

It's more precise.

It doesn't find itself by winging it.

It won't match other people's paths or footsteps before you.

It won't be a copy and paste of generic advice or plans.

It's uniquely yours.

The history is personalised and the future is bespoke. That doesn't come ready-made.

And it's frustrating.

I started over to rebuild my life and I put a five-ish-year subconscious timeframe on it, because that was a decent timeline to my previous success without the experience.

I believed it would be more enjoyable because I would see the results, and because it was for something more internally meaningful than externally gratifying.

Except it didn't quite look or feel that way.

I couldn't accurately measure progress because it wasn't linear. Unlike school and career ladders, where we're taught there are certain steps and predictable rises, rebuilding doesn't behave like that.

It isn't logical.

It isn't an upward climb.

It isn't a straight direction.

And no, you're not doing it wrong.

I appreciate that linear steps would make us feel more assured and comforted.

But the fact you're no longer climbing the corporate, career or conventional ladder is deliberate. Or maybe a series of events pushed you here, but you're brave enough to keep going because you want something more this time.

So climbing the meaning staircase has a nuance to it.

Sometimes it feels purposeful.

Then fearful.

You can get frozen on the first step.

Lost halfway up.

Start climbing back down because you've reached a section where it looks like the stairs have disappeared altogether.

All of this is rightfully terrifying.

But here's the thing: often all those scenarios happen because we're trying to picture the whole staircase. We imagine how things should look. Reality doesn't match the picture we'd already painted. We expect to see every step before we've taken the first one.

All that work your mind is doing to create certainty can end up convincing you that wanting to climb the staircase at all was the mistake.

The staircase appears as you step. It doesn't always reveal itself until you've taken the next step into the unknown.

Sometimes the next step will look wrong. It'll feel like a mess, a mistake or a dead end. But that's part of making meaning.

You wouldn't know if you hadn't stepped there.

We're trying to make sense of every part that doesn't require sense.

It just needs small, bite-sized moves.

What makes you feel more alive?

What would be fun?

What would be doable?

Is it booking that trip? Researching that thing? Putting it all aside and going to the funfair, eating the cake or jumping in the sea because... why not?

Why do we make life so serious?

Why do we spend so much time fretting over the staircase?

Don't forget to have fun whilst rebuilding.

Don't forget that through all the seriousness and confusion, you're allowed to enjoy yourself.

You're allowed to make a mess.

You don't have to get the next step right.

It can be the wrong one.

A small one.

A seemingly unrelated one.

Just focus on the next step.

You don't need to see the whole staircase.