The Luxury of Knowing - by Michael Dempsey - On My Mind

We notice when we don’t belong. We often don’t fully notice when we do. This happens everywhere, but especially in tech, where the systems are remarkably good at pulling people in and the groupthink is even better at keeping them there. You can spend years inside the bubble before you realize you never questioned whether you were in the right place. Careers are strange because growing up is infinite. You show up to your first job and someone hires you, pays you, and you spend months toggling between imposter syndrome, overconfidence, and existential doubt about what you do or don’t know about work and life. One of the luckiest breaks of my life was figuring out what work I wanted to do ~20 and feeling a deep sense of fulfillment from investing. I didn’t appreciate it then. I do now. Finding your direction professionally can be the difference between moving through the world with clarity and moving through it with a low-grade hum of anxiety that never turns off. When you have th

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• Eli Qian