A year of self-interrogation and learning to stay

I spent the year in a very comfortable place.

It was the most uncomfortable I’ve been.

It’s the year I saw the full impact of an understimulated ADHD brain. (Obviously, not the first year I've felt this way. But the first since my diagnosis.)

In any other year, comfort in career wouldn’t just be a major red flag. It is - and has been - my dealbreaker. It signals to me a lack of movement in every sense of the word.

I once half-joked, pre-diagnosis, that I have a higher than average threshold for unreasonable workload and pathetic pay - but the minute I get comfortable or catch a whiff of it on the horizon, it's goodbye.

Once our brains start to tap out, it’s usually irreversible. It’s only a matter of how steep the decline from comfort to apathy. So as unintuitive as it may feel to pull the plug when things are good, it’s better for everyone when we leave at our peak. I hate running - yet it has always been my crisis management SOP.

I suppose I'm not in comms for a reason.

This year, I ditched the plan. I stuck around.

People knock the purpose of a diagnosis, but I can quite certainly say that it kept me in my job.

A diagnosis gives clarity to the discomfort and depression we experience once boredom sets in. An explanation doesn't remotely make ADHD disappear, but it does provide a roadmap out of the fog, even if we have to build signposts and strategies from scratch without a torch.

This time, I knew comfort didn't mean I was going crazy. I was simply understimulated - even though my neurological wiring meant there was nothing "simple" about it.

But frankly, the knowledge that my restlessness was driven by ADHD didn't suffice either. The most inconvenient thing about this brain is not that it always questions the status quo, always challenges convention, always pokes holes.

The most inconvenient thing is that, for better or worse, I am not spared my own incessant interrogation.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ― Zora Neale Hurston

Then there are years that accomplish both.

I was morbidly curious: What would happen if I just didn't listen to my brain this time? If, instead of running from my comfort zone, I challenged myself to stay in it? If, instead of working around boredom, I tried to understand and work with it? If, instead of rushing to rid understimulation, I became interested in what it was trying to tell me?

Even after 8 years together, my therapist and I have never done a deep dive into career ennui. Mostly because I never let myself get to this stage.

At least that's the narrative I prefer.

Truth is, we have most definitely gotten to this stage. The chief takeaway from therapy, you will find, is that almost every new situation is a repackaging of an old lesson you have yet to learn. It is a path well-travelled. It just takes some time to realise the breadcrumbs you've left yourself.

Learning to acknowledge and accept uncomfortable feelings is a god-awful process - but it is a familiar one.

I've just not had to do this with any career conundrum. There was no need to remotely acknowledge and accept boredom or stagnancy or any impending sense of comfort because there was always a solution and the solution always worked.

The solution is movement.

My whole career has been an experiment in movement. Upwards, laterally, mentally. Into another industry, down the next rabbit hole. I am my best self in optimal discomfort; when my goals are so lofty I don't dare speak them; when I am so intimidated by my ambition that the only way to shake off the fear is to move, to start step by step. I chase situations where I don't know whether I can pull something off, with the odds being 50-50. I love, love, love that sink-or-swim feeling. It paralyses some people. It makes me come alive.

I spent the year in my comfort zone because I wanted to uncover the strategies to challenge and reignite this ADHD brain.

I did.

Many.

None stuck.

The solution was not movement.

In journalism as in therapy, always be suspicious of a neat, well-rehearsed narrative - particularly the ones you've told yourself. This is real life, not a government press release.

January 2024 will mark the 10th year since I entered the workplace. And it took the remaining year of this decade for me to truly understand:

Movement for movement sake is not about growth.

It's about escape.

James Joyce puts it best: "Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."

When I stopped running this year, I found myself face to face with my younger self. The one who stood in the aisles of Kino and pored over magazines until my dad had to physically drag me away before his parking fee cost an arm and leg. The one whose single highlight of the week was reading 2,000-word celebrity profiles in 8 Days or LIME. The one who savoured every word in the lede of a GQ or NY Mag culture feature story. The one who spent hours reading blogs like Rookie and Man Repeller rather than doing homework.

During one career sharing session, a student asked me how I knew what I wanted to do.

Without thinking, I replied along these lines: "Your hobbies are hints. Don't dismiss your teenage passions. What did you find yourself drawn towards, and why? What did you love so bad before you realised the practicality of making money? It's actually not that difficult to find what gives you meaning and purpose, and that consistently lights up your brain. But it is much, much harder to pay attention when it does."

Without the distraction of new challenges, I could finally, finally pay attention to myself this year.

In 2024, I plan to get out of my own way.