Rediscovering Meaning
The choices that led me away and back again.
I’ve felt drawn to storytelling for as long as I can remember.
Growing up, this translated to online platforms where I’d dramatically recount and express the events of my life. In my high school creative writing class, I somehow summoned enough emotion to write a compelling short story about a dog I saw walking alongside the highway. And when it came time to decide which undergraduate degree I’d pursue, journalism became the clear choice — though it wasn’t the only contender.
I considered both journalism and nursing after witnessing my own dad’s exposure to the healthcare system and learning how much your care team can affect your journey. The nursing path felt personal and therefore meaningful to me. But then I realized nursing requires a tolerance for sights and smells I’m simply not built for, so back to writing it was.
Storytelling feels meaningful to me. Though I’ve recently come to realize that maybe I’m more drawn to meaning than storytelling — storytelling is just a means to find my way there.
I pursued an emphasis in magazine writing and editing with dreams of working for a magazine one day. At the time, I think I envisioned this as some glamorous, big-city movie moment, but regardless, I knew I wanted to write long-form stories.
For those unfamiliar with the grueling experience that is the Missouri School of Journalism, you have to undergo a series of unfortunate classes for most emphasis areas besides strategic communications. This included a semester working as a reporter at the Columbia Missourian, a legitimate local newspaper for the city of Columbia. Admittedly, I was horrible. I was riddled with anxiety, surrounded by competitive, cutthroat, high-achieving kiss-asses who loved the thrill of chasing the latest breaking news. I also had an insufferable editor. You know the saying, “You’ll forget what someone says, but you’ll never forget how they made you feel.” That was my editor. They shook my confidence and made me question my potential more times than I can count. Legend has it they’ve since been fired for how they treated their students. That was incredibly validating to hear, but I digress.
That era of my life led me to get on antidepressants. It sounds so extreme when I recall it now, but reporting was filled with so much pressure, competition, and intensity, usually for a downright depressing story. My gripe with reporting is that it rarely has to do with the story itself and is more about racing to tell the story before anyone else. I felt devastated by the epiphany that this was not for me after all.
The path toward my writing dream became grimmer and dimmer by the day. And then my breaking point happened.
I was in the newsroom working a shift when I was tasked with calling a hospital to find out the status of victims from a car crash. I had to call and ask if they were alive or dead. I couldn’t do it. It felt so inhumane to me, and for what? So we could be the first to share the news? I have the utmost respect for journalists and know they do important work. But like nursing, I simply was not built for that. That wasn’t storytelling — that was reporting.
What followed was nothing short of a mental breakdown: I left the newsroom crying, called my mom and brother in crisis mode, and by the end of the day had decided I was switching my emphasis area to strategic communications. I was also consistently blogging at the time and wrote (probably my most dramatic post to date) about how I withdrew and felt the relief pouring out of me. I still remember the feeling.
Recently, a friend told me there is no right or wrong choice — there’s just the choice, and what you make of it, and what choices come about as you move along the path you chose. And that’s exactly what I did.
It was in one of my strategic communications classes in my final semester when we watched an advertisement for Make-A-Wish. The “advertisement” ended up being a wish story and showed the power of a wish. Later that day, I emailed the local Make-A-Wish chapter asking if they had any internship opportunities available for the summer. Purpose was within reach.
One thing led to another, and after putting in my time as an unpaid intern the summer after graduating, I became a full-time (paid) employee.
A lot of my role consisted of interviewing wish families and writing stories about their experiences. I loved the fulfilling work I was doing and had discovered meaning again. I stayed in this role for about three years before that choice led to another and, as a result, a new path.
Corporate America often feels like a manufactured hell.
Making the switch from nonprofit to tech was not an easy decision. I struggled a lot with how I was trading a job that was so objectively impactful, rewarding, and meaningful for something more materialistic: sweet benefits and perks, and just outright cool as hell. I negotiated with myself that even though I was leaving the nonprofit sphere, it didn’t mean I had to give up meaning; it meant I had to be more intentional about how I created it. In hindsight, I think I neglected this pact with myself somewhere along the way.
For the first handful of years, I was immersed in a fun startup tech culture, traveling often enough to feel fulfilled, and contributing to a company mission I cared about enough. And though this job marked the start of my remote working life, I still had a sense of community built in the virtual sphere that was occasionally lived out in person.
Things began shifting as the company followed suit with the rest of the world. I’m so tired of even hearing those two vowel letters, I’m resisting even typing them. But everyone is familiar: they’ve been powerful enough to replace humans, cut out the art of the process, and yield instant gratification.
I sensed the writing on the wall for a long time, based on cues around me, intuition, and how the rest of the world was shaping and shifting. But I did not prepare for 40% of the company — many of whom were friends and loved ones — to get laid off while I was among the 60% marked “safe.”
Like I felt in the newsroom all those years ago, these circumstances completely ruined any resemblance of meaning or connection for me in that realm. Life works in parallels.
The silver lining is that this shift has acted as a catalyst for me and others around me to rediscover meaning and purpose. One of my friends began dreaming of owning her own mezcaleria one day. Some are relocating to other cities. Another friend took this as a sign from the universe to fully focus on her career as a musician. This same friend reminded me of the value of our skills: the things that make us uniquely us and can’t be manufactured or easily replaced.
As for myself, I recently returned to my journalistic roots and passion for storytelling.
During a weak moment in all of this, I even hypocritically turned to the validation bot and asked it, “What is life about?” It answered: “In the simplest terms, life is about experiencing, connecting, and creating meaning.”
After all this time — and the many choices stacked one after another, each informing the last — I’m now writing for a magazine. I’m pitching original ideas and writing stories that feel meaningful to me, highlighting what brings meaning to others.
Sometimes you have to search for the meaning, or create it yourself. Or, in my case, sometimes you have to return to it.