Optionality

Ladders giving way to jungle gyms

Eighteen months ago, I gave birth to my daughter. Having frozen my eggs four years before that, I wrote of the experience in June 2019:

I mapped out all the ways I could have a family and included egg freezing in the mix. I went from feeling kind of like I missed my chance, to realizing I had at least eight options—half of which became possible when I had my own frozen eggs with which to work.

As the Fates would have it, I was able to conceive at 40 without interventions. And on the precipice of turning 43 next spring, I still have options for growing our family if that’s what we decide we want to do.

My experience further reinforces for me that there is no one, single path… or age… or set of steps… that will guarantee success, happiness, or favorable outcomes. The myth of the career ladder is all but dismantled, thanks to widely-resonant concepts like career jungle gyms and career / life portfolios (shout out Christina Wallace , April Rinne ). There’s even an eponymous Substack / community called Optionality, co-founded by the wonderful dynamos Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins , which asks us to reflect:“Is your relationship with work evolving? Is your definition of success changing?”I am pretty sure most people would respond: YES and YES (I know I sure do).

And with that as our backdrop today, I invite you to (continue to) challenge the systems designed to create a monolithic worker and rebuke the words of false prophets. You have agency and options. Now let’s dig in.

As a mom of a toddler (oh my gosh is it amazing and hard), it’s really something to re-read my egg freezing story five-plus years later. I want so badly to tell my younger self: It’s going to work out, you’re doing great, and—hot damn—thank you for making sure that you gave future me (you?!) so many options.

I feel a lot of the same feels—swelling gratitude, awe, and even a bit of disbelief (I did that? that was me?! where is she now?!)—when I think of a younger me, who:

• in 1993: showed up in a rural Oregon classroom as a transfer student in sixth grade from California with only a pen pal (Steph) and two new homeroom friends Jessica McCormick & Matt Wallaert )…
• in 2001: transferred colleges after my freshman year, realizing that while the full ride tuition was amazing, I had made the wrong choice for me....

In both instances, I found a way to create community and thrive. Even when it felt like my middle school life was over (so very Inside Out of me lol). And even when I was intimidated about the change to the 美国芝加哥大学 —both the costs and the cohort overwhelmed me. These new options gave me an even better version of my life than I could have ever imagined.

Two questions for you:

• What comes up for you when you look in the rearview mirror of hard fought lessons? grit-n-grizzled wins? at-the-time-felt-like-defeats but were really just redirects to a now-with-hindsight much better position?

• What might you be inspired by to pull forward from your past to support you in what you need now?

[...]

As we await the results from [Today's] Presidential Election; as we look ahead to what we want and need out of our careers; and as we consider making changes to our lives to optimize for the wealth we need most in this moment (of time, of community, of capital, etc.) I want to leave you with one thought and four prompts:

The thought:

“…when you’re young, it feels like those sorts of details aren’t critical to think through. Looking back, I would say: actually, they are important. They are important chiefly to ensure you have agency in your life and options about the future you want to create for yourself.” [emphasis added; excerpt from I Froze 22 Eggs at 36. Here’s What I Learned.]

The prompts:

1. Which details do you need to think through so you have more agency and more options in your life?
2. What does agency in your life mean for you? When did you feel you had a lot of it in your life? Not enough? What was the difference?
3. What sort of optionality do you want to create for yourself in this next season? Which details, what sort of agency, and what kind of mindset do you need in order to make these options a reality?
4. Looking back at the tapestry of your life, what are 1-2 moments where you are proud of your younger self? What are the lessons, reminders, habits, or skills you want to pull forward from your archives to meet this moment with all that is you?

And with that, happy [Tuesday]. May you find calm in the storm knowing—like Dorothy in Oz—you contain multitudes, you have overcome change and challenge before, and your answers are in your options.

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