maybe we're not supposed to work in offices

i didn’t get the safe job, and it might’ve saved me

For most of 2024, I was scared of my own future. Not because of uncertainty, but because of what felt inevitable.

I had a plan: finish my degree in the summer of 2025, start applying for IT office jobs in the spring, have something lined up after graduation, and post about it on LinkedIn.

My morning walk to the subway was only two minutes long, but every morning, I met a stream of corporate people.

Expensive coats, leather laptop bags, always walking at full speed.

I’d then sit on the subway (if I could get a seat), staring at the commercials lining the walls, and feel this numb, buzzing pressure in my chest.

I’d picture myself joining that stream. And I’d feel my stomach drop.

Because that’s where I was heading.

Somewhere along the way, I’d been blinded to what actually mattered to me.

Until my twenties, I never pictured myself doing that for a living. I was set on being a writer. But circumstances, fears, and my inner critic had pushed me in another direction.

A path that made sense on paper: stable, respectable, easy to explain to relatives and new acquaintances.

Inside, something felt off. But for a long time, I didn’t ask myself why. I pushed it down with schoolwork, scrolling, and another round of “I’ll figure it out later.”

Later showed up faster than I expected.

Deep down, I think I knew—even if I’d buried it—that in 2025 I would realize that path wasn’t for me, just as I was supposed to start applying for jobs.

And the road to that realization would be hard.

It would hurt, like growing pains.

That’s when this one word popped into my mind.

The night I realized I was gone

One night in 2024, I was lying on the couch with my phone too close to my face. The living room was completely dark.

I told myself I couldn’t turn a light on because my boyfriend was asleep in the other room, and it would wake him.

In reality, he wouldn’t have cared if I turned a light on. I just couldn’t be bothered.

My journal lay open in front of me. The page felt as empty as I did.

Out of habit, I opened my notes app and started scrolling.

2020. 2019. 2018. Little poem‑shaped fragments of my thoughts.

I was back in my childhood bedroom, where I had written most of them.

I could feel the plushness of my bed, touch the duvet cover that was always so soft since my mom insisted on ironing our sheets.

I felt the cold surface of the wooden bench I’d sat on, too drunk and ugly-crying about having lost my friends in the club. Benches at night often bring something out of me.

My past self felt loud on the screen.

Dramatic, yes. But alive.

A knot formed in my stomach. I read my latest journal entries, few as they were. My chest tightened; I could hear my own heartbeat, loud in the silence.

Those entries felt… empty. Like the saturation had been turned down on my life.

I’ve always loved hanging out with friends and meeting new people. But back then, I felt strangely absent, even when I was with others.

I felt like I was having the same conversation with everyone. I couldn’t find anything new to say because nothing excited me.

And it scared the shit out of me. Because it wasn’t about anyone else; it was all me.

I opened a new note and typed too fast:

Where are my thoughts? Where are my dreams and aspirations?

Who the hell have I become?

I knew at that moment that I wouldn’t be able to write like former-me did—with that sense of life, of dreaming, of actually feeling alive.

I stayed up that night, even though I had a seminar in the morning, texting my friend—a fellow night owl.

I’m scared, I wrote. I think I’ve lost myself, and I don’t know how to find my way back.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the night I started unlearning the version of adulthood I thought I was supposed to achieve.

The word that wouldn’t leave me alone

At the end of 2024, a word popped into my mind and wouldn’t leave.

Growth.

That year, I’d gone through a lot of growing pains. Feeling lost within myself led to a new fear: I could no longer pretend nothing was wrong.

I started working on myself. I went to therapy.

I had a quiet, slightly terrifying sense that this would be the theme of my next year.

Before I could find a job that fit me, I’d have to admit I didn’t want the one I was headed toward.

I didn’t know what “grown”‑me would look like yet. I just knew that staying on the path I was on would mean shrinking.

It would mean more nights like the one on the couch.

And that thought canceled out my other fears.

So I let that one word sit with me.

Slowly, my life started to rearrange itself around it.

The sign I was waiting for

In spring 2025, despite my worries, I started applying for office jobs in IT.

I think I applied to over a hundred, treating it as my full-time job while also writing my thesis. Months passed, energy reducing by the application.

As graduation approached, I told myself:

If I don’t get any of these jobs, I’ll take it as a sign.

I’ll stop applying—and write my book.

My book is currently at fifty thousand words.

What actually changed

I started reflecting on my life and what was truly important to me.

I started allowing myself real rest. I read more instead of scrolling. I logged out of Instagram.

It sounds really simple, but something shifted.

Slowly, I began to find my way back to my dream of becoming a writer.

It was terrifying, but there it was, gnawing at the back of my mind, refusing to be suppressed any longer.

By the end of 2025, I had a new word. Like the year before, it felt unavoidable.

Adventure.

For the first time in my life, I had no idea where the next year would take me. My email was full of rejections, my bank account was empty.

But for the first time in a long time, I felt like my old self. I woke up excited to create, to live a life in color.

It’s now April 2026.

I still don’t have a “real” job.

Somehow, I feel less scared than I have in years.

I know it will work out, because I’m writing every day, after almost fifteen years of not allowing myself to.

I don’t know exactly how I’ll reach my dream, or when, but I know I will.

Because I finally believe I’m worthy.

And that feels like a dream in itself.

Invitation for you

Growth pulled me out of a life that didn’t feel like mine and back toward myself.

Adventure is a tiny reminder of who I’m becoming.

It seems small, choosing a word. But if you let it, it can rearrange your life in ways you don’t expect.

So if you’re reading this (hi <3), here’s your invitation: choose one word.

Don’t overthink it. Pick the one that comes to mind. The one that feels a little scary and a little exciting.

Write it down. Put it somewhere you’ll see it. Let it remind you in the tiny, everyday decisions.

Then watch what happens.

Maybe, a year from now, you’ll look back and realize that one simple word was the beginning of finding your way back to yourself—the way growth was for me.

If you do choose a word, I’d genuinely love to hear it.

♡
sofia