Career Confession: I Broke Up With My “Dream Career” in 2025
Society has a weird relationship with perceived failure and mistakes in general. We consume content that prioritizes success at all costs and heroism, rewarding those who “make it.” There’s also the obsession with not having a “normal” life. You know, looking down our noses at those who still have 9-5 jobs and don’t have anything “exciting” to brag about according to social media’s standards. I say “our” because I used to think I needed to chase this version of success that chose to discard me despite my best efforts.
In my opinion, 2025 told me a few things. For one, it seemed to say, “Did you really think you’d stopped being a people pleaser? You spent almost two years being an agreeable yes woman at the ‘dream job’ you started to feel drained in.” Oh yeah — that uncomfortable thought crossed my mind several times until I was ready to sit with it. After all, it’s hard to admit choosing to ignore red flags because you’d only ranted about chasing the ‘dream career’ you’ve always wanted since you were 17 years old. That you were a failure if you didn’t get it.
The funny thing about writing this is that I read something that felt scarily familiar. Brittany Spanos, a former Senior Writer at Rolling Stone, was laid off earlier this month and accurately described something I avoided for a greater part of the year. “Is there a version of this story where it ends on my terms and not on someone else’s? Was I ever going to accept that I had outgrown the only dream I ever had?” Once I finally dared to confront my version of this, it’s like my inner voice released a huge sigh of relief.
As it turns out, being honest with myself started a long journey of untethering myself from something I thought I needed in order to be happy and fulfilled in life.
Changing My Perspective Didn’t Happen Overnight
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but I’m going to say it for the people in the back: change doesn’t happen overnight. It can be a tedious process that’s full of stops and starts. Sometimes it feels like you’re climbing up a mountain only to slide into a crevice. Oh, and you may have skinned both knees on the way down. It’s not some magical process that makes you feel like you’re floating while you’re in the thick of it either. The truth is that you may resist change like I did. No seriously. You might try to fight it like you’re in a mental battle against Vecna (Stranger Things reference).
The amount of times I cried while trying to figure out how my family would survive multiple job losses this year can never be accurately described. Whatever changes affected the economy and businesses inadvertently struck myself and my fiancé in ways where it seemed we would lose our home, cars, and ways to feed our son. So no, I wasn’t frolicking through the fields as I embraced change. I also didnt’t easily forgive the people who felt responsible for the messy way it occurred. However, several revelations showed me they were just pawns in a bigger uprooting.
The truth is that I had to keep making conscious decisions to step into the familiar and the unknown if I wanted to walk out of 2025 alive. I joke about it now, but it already tried to literally unalive me so I figured I might as well give change a chance.
Making Peace with Journalism’s Rocky Landscape
This year wasn’t just rough for me in terms of a media layoff. Like I mentioned earlier, so many others were affected. There’s the dismantling of Teen Vogue’s political team that comes to mind and it’s overall “folding into Vogue.” Also, Business Insider, Food52, Hearst, People, Inc., Penguin Random House, and so many other publications/brands faced budget issues or “restructuring.” If I’m being honest, this isn’t the first time layoffs have happened on a mass scale. It just feels much more widespread because this change isn’t just affecting one industry.
Now that the mask is off, I can wholeheartedly say knew something weird was afoot when the CEO of the publication I used to write for would find ways to bring up Trump during meetings. Though said person aligned themselves opposite of him, they’d bring up news involving him which felt waste of time since the overall “team” was meant to discuss work. Never mind the increasingly passive aggressive comments about producing articles faster leading up to my layoff. In my effort to becoming more concise and say yes to every pivot or quick story, I started to resent what I was doing.
Though I’ll always have a love for the research and storytelling aspect of journalism, I recognize it’s a playground for business owners. If they increase SEO and ad revenue while getting rid of anyone they feel no longer fits their aesthetic or budget, that’s the real win for them. Plus, media is getting away from long-form content and truth-telling.
The “What’s Next,” Question No Longer Stresses Me Out
I used to think I needed to have a response for the age old “what’s next” question. I thought it meant I was unprepared for life if my answer wasn’t precise and to other people’s liking. But now? Now I’ve been shoulder shrugging it or answering honestly: “I don’t know. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
What matters to me is that my family and I still have a place to call home in the midst of so much painful change. That being present feels like a breath of fresh air instead of worrying about the future and things that are beyond my control. Obviously, there are some things that can be planned, but the career thing?
I’m giving myself permission to be open to what God has for me because it turns out that I’m no longer angry about what happened. It needed to.
I needed to change and if I’m being honest, I was begging for it towards the end of last year. Yeah, exactly a year ago.
Isn’t it funny how it may not come in the form we want it to, but it ends up being the very thing we need?
