Why I left Google: work-life balance
What will the author blog in 5 years?<p>I am noticing a (darkish?) pattern in these recurring “I transitioned jobs” reports. Worryingly, they represent many of the words I imagine myself writing if I were again a blogger.<p>It’s basically the honeymoon&#x2F;wanderlust cycle. Person gets job. It is a dream job. It is described as a dream job because of reasons a1, b1, and c1. Delta t passes. Things have changed. Because of reasons x1, y1, and z1, job is no longer a good dream job. It’s now a bad dream&#x2F;nightmare job. Person has awakened now, and for reasons, a2, b2, and c2 is living a new dream. Blink, flinch, repeat.<p>The nagging suspicion is that while things change, they don’t so much actually. They shift around. What does change is how we come to see things. At one point, we convince ourselves things are awesome. Later we believe it’s not. Which is the real truth we ought to accept? It’s like trying to measure the one way speed of light. You can’t, just the sum of the round trip.<p>So do we make the assumption that somewhere in the middle of this good-to-bad cycle is the reality? Or suspect it was always that bad, we were just able to initially gaslight ourselves? Or perhaps that it was and still is good, we’ve just let the negatives creep in and take over?<p>Some would philosophize that all happiness is an illusion. Or a choice. Or whatever.<p>But what frustrates me about this (having been through this cycle 3-4 times now), is that it is not a universal life experience. I have relationships with family, friends, and various institutions that grow stronger and stronger over time. They do NOT loop like work relationships do. Is there something inherit in work relationships that makes this loop inevitable? Do all experience it, or only a certain mindset of persons? Are there cases where this loop is broken, but they just rare enough, you don’t hear about them? Should I despair or hope?