Farewell and Messy Beginnings

Sent: Friday, December 17, 2021 7:21 AM | Subject: Farewell...

Hello, I’m so glad you’re here. First - a bit of housekeeping. Some of you may have missed last week’s email and I hate to be saying this, but: check your spam folders!
Last week’s article included more links than usual which might be the reason it ended up there. Here’s what you can do:

1. move those emails to your inbox & mark them as “not spam”

2. add purposefulconnection@substack.com (that’s me!) to your contacts

3. get the Substack app

Now, onto today’s essay… (bonus - with article VoiceOver!)

This is the third post in a bit of a series. If you’re new here, I suggest going back and starting with It All Started With A Panic Attack and Creating Distance To Gain Clarity before continuing.

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I felt an outpouring of love; I hadn’t fully realized how much people cared about me and that I would be missed as a person first and foremost. Much of what I was saying and doing resonated deeply with others; I was touched.

I am proud of what I wrote in my farewell email, for how I showed up for the team and others until my last day.

Photo by Junseong Lee on Unsplash

Here are some parts of that email:

Today is my last day at Amazon. After 9 ½ years as a blue badge employee, I have decided to leave Amazon and take some time off for myself to figure out what’s next for me in life.

I learned on a podcast that the original meaning of the word “quit” comes from the Latin noun “quies” - “sleep, rest, repose, absence of activity, absence of noise, freedom from disturbance, freedom from anxiety, placidness, serenity, tranquility, peaceful conditions.” The verb “to quit,” carried the sense of “to set free”. Apparently only during the industrial revolution, did “quit” earn a negative connotation (being a quitter, to give up).

So here I am, setting myself free from the daily grind, WBR metrics, pressure and expectations (both internal and external), and a life that has for too long evolved too much around work and being productive.

It’s not lost on me that the reason I am able to take this step is because of the opportunities I have had and the connections I have made here at Amazon (well, and my immigration status, and a list of other privileges). I’m grateful for all of that.

And finally, to all of you (I see you!) who are not satisfied with the status quo, who ask for more from this company, who demand Amazon makes good on their promise to be earth’s best employer, keep up the work! Slow and steady, I believe that change is possible.

My proudest contributions are the ones I have made to try to change Amazon’s culture bit by bit but there is so much work to be done. From creating and launching an internal Amazon Parenting podcast, creating a CE parents group and being a Project 10 ambassador, to becoming an Inclusion Bar Raiser (now IDEA), and contributing as a member and leading the TMT DEI working group: through making myself vulnerable at work, sharing the struggles of having kids at home during the pandemic, sharing that I too struggle with the workload and demands, I have learned that there is a lot of strength and power in it, and it resonates with so many.

I have had countless conversations with others who feel the same, who demand more, and I want you to know that you are not alone. Open up, find your people, find strength in each other, support each other, and lead by example, whether it’s by joining the working group, or by holding firm on your lunch time boundary and showing vulnerability.

Being earth’s best employer doesn’t have to mean higher productivity and higher performance. I hope for an Amazon that values the well-being of all of their employees over productivity; that sees real inclusion, equity, and justice and not just diversity as the goal; where leaders are valued for the culture they create and the example they set for caring about their own and others’ long term well-being; where there is time and capacity for rest, for learning, for connection; a culture where it’s not so exhausting and risky to identify, draw, and uphold boundaries and showing up authentically at work.

I’ll leave you with another message from the same podcast series I listened to on that long airplane ride: Real self-care is taking the time to know ourselves, to know our needs, and making the incremental life adjustments to actually meet those needs; it’s to create a life that doesn’t require us to escape from it regularly.

Following my last day at Amazon, I dove in deep with my therapist right away. We analyzed, explored, explained. I read books; I listened to podcasts. I had long conversations with my sister over the phone. It felt like progress; and it also felt like too much.

I hadn’t learned to rest yet; to not be looking, searching for connections, for answers, for explanations. I read books not for the joy they were bringing me, but for the answers they might provide. I’m not sure I even had clear questions; there were so many different thoughts in my head at any given time, nothing seemed to make sense or connect.

I craved structure and answers.

I wanted to rest and slow down, but didn’t know how.

I took it all very seriously, though. I read books, painted with watercolor, took naps, baked cookies, and took my dog for long walks. I took resting and “not accomplishing things” so seriously, that I failed to pay attention to what I really needed. I didn’t allow myself to have a to-do list. Until I did, and it was so freeing to have that structure again. Oh, the tug and pull between structure and planning on the one side, and rest and ‘go with the flow’ on the other. It’s woven throughout my journal pages. I see it now, the pattern. Then, it just looked like me trying to figure out how to be, day to day.

The days looked messy; trying different things; always in my head, paying attention, noticing, analyzing, journaling. There was joy, yes, in running and painting, and watching TV. But I wasn’t doing it with ease; I was searching, and trying, and looking, craving for answers. I’d like to say it was all with a sense of curiosity, but it wasn’t. Curiosity would have felt lighter, more playful. “Where did I read the other day that too much mindfulness and introspection can be too much and increase anxiety? I felt that! I am in my own head too much sometimes,” I wrote in my journal one day.

Thoughts, so many thoughts… in my head, in conversations, on paper; always on.

It would be another six months or so before I started to understand why my brain just never ever stops.

On April 26, 2022, four months into my journey, I wrote: “Now look how free I am feeling; content and good with myself. Optimistic and grounded and calm and yes, very much liking myself. Connected to me and who I am.”

Connected to myself… it took four months for me to say that; to feel that for the first time.

I had used yoga and running to feel that connection to my body through physical exercise; it was a mechanism to feel. Sometimes joy and playfulness, at other times sadness and grief and anger.

I don’t know what was different on that specific day, but something clicked. And it wouldn’t have happened without all of the messiness of the previous four months. It takes time; and this was just the first time that I felt the connection. It would take a lot longer for it to turn into a gesture, for it to feel familiar.

I was peeling back the layers every day, exploring and noticing; finding my way back to myself. And there was so much more to come.

I wonder, if I could go back in time, what would I tell myself? I think I’d say:

You’re doing it absolutely right.

Your way is the only way.

Messy is okay. Messy is good.

It’s all in the details, that’s how you figure it out; by paying attention to the small things.

You have to experience it for yourself; even if it doesn’t make sense now; it will.

I admire your courage.

Be patient, my love.

If you want to speed up one thing a bit, sprinkle in a bit more compassion toward yourself.

I’m going to leave you with a poem by Mary Oliver that deeply resonated with me at the time and does even more so today, having been through more of my journey.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.