A friend of mine — let’s call him Mark — left his job a while ago.
He was good at it. Reliable. Capable of managing complicated projects. But the work had stopped feeling like his.
So he quit.
And almost immediately something strange happened.
There was no signal anymore telling him he was doing the right thing. No manager. No performance review. No system confirming he was on track.
Nothing.
His parents called.
Is this stable? What if it doesn’t work out?
They meant well.
But their fear settled somewhere inside him.
He left the office. He brought the cage with him.
The doubt. The guilt. The feeling he needed to justify his time.
Mark wasn’t struggling because he lacked ability.
For fifteen years he had worked inside other people’s systems. Solving their problems. Chasing their goals.
He was excellent at it.
But nobody had ever asked him where he wanted to go.
So when the structure disappeared, he froze.
I know the feeling.
Different situation. Same drift.
A few years ago I pushed my sound design work toward marketing. On paper it made sense. There was money in it.
But something felt wrong.
The work stopped being about creating something real. It became persuasion. Slowly I found myself working with people whose world didn’t make much sense to me.
I had moved away from myself.
It took longer than I’d like to admit before I acknowledged it.
But the mistake brought a different question.
What kind of life am I actually trying to build?
When Mark and I talked, I asked him something simple.
What do you want your life to look like in three years?
He thought about it.
Then he said what most people say.
Freedom. Success. Something meaningful.
Which sounds right. But doesn’t mean much.
So I told him mine. Not in vague terms. In details.
Portugal. The Minho region. A small house on land that backs into forest. My kids growing up speaking Portuguese. Swimming in rivers. Running outside until the sun goes down.
Working five focused hours each morning on sound design I care about. Then stepping away.
Walking in the hills. Strong physique. Campfires.
Simple. Just a life that feels real.
He sat quietly for a while.
Then he said something I’ve heard more than once.
I didn’t think you were allowed to want something that specific.
There it was.
He wasn’t missing direction. He was missing permission.
Here’s what I’ve seen working with people through this.
Direction doesn’t come from analysis. It comes from noticing what quietly pulls your attention. The things that make hours disappear.
But curiosity alone isn’t enough.
You have to take responsibility for earning the life.
My Portugal plan isn’t fantasy. Sound design is unpredictable work. I don’t have enough saved to buy land outright. So I found an investor. Built the ability to work remotely. Chose a region where the numbers work.
These aren’t compromises. They’re constraints.
Every life is built inside constraints.
Yours will be different. Maybe your work isn’t remote. Maybe your family is rooted where you are. Maybe your skills translate differently.
But the principle stays.
Find where your curiosity and your value meet. Start there. Keep adjusting.
The aliveness people are looking for isn’t somewhere far away.
Most of the time it’s simpler than that.
It begins the moment you choose a direction that actually belongs to you.