We’ve Been Working Since Birth
We worked (and stay in work) to meet unspoken expectations.
Work didn’t start when you got your first paycheck.
It didn’t start with your internship,
or the first office job you took to prove something to your parents (or to yourself).
Work started the moment you were born.
Isn’t that scary?
[I wasn’t even sure to write the words. But there they are.]
One more time: Work started the moment you were born.
My mom said to me, I was such a “good girl.”
As a baby. 👶🏽👶🏼
She said I was quiet, even-tempered, and all around easy to take care of.
How was I to know there was a way I should be as a child? An ideal way to be.
That’s all work.
Emotional labor. Spiritual labor.
Relational labor. Constant. Unpaid. Unnamed.
Since we were born.
We worked for approval as kids (consciously or unconsciously).
We worked to meet unspoken expectations inside our families.
We worked under cultural scripts, ancestral traumas, and invisible contracts of loyalty, care, and “being good.”
People like to say: “Don’t mix work and personal life.”
But look closely: offices, nonprofits, agencies, government jobs—every one of them mimics the family dynamic.
There’s the patriarch or matriarch (boss).
The siblings competing for attention (coworkers).
The enabling aunts and uncles (middle managers).
👩👧👦👩👦👨👩👧👦👪
And just like family, we replay dynamics we didn’t sign up for but can’t quite escape—only now survival is tied to it.
Rent.
Groceries.
Healthcare.
Dreams of a better life.
In our families, you could theoretically walk away. Painful, yes—but possible.
In a 9–5, walking away feels impossible because your livelihood is tethered to it.
Money Made It Obvious
For years, we worked invisibly for worth and validation. Then suddenly, the work became financial.
It wasn’t about being “good” or “helpful” anymore. It’s about being billable.
Productive. It’s about turning survival into salary.
And the cost?
Enduring micromanagers, toxic dynamics, and office politics—all for the chance to build savings, start a family of our own, create some sliver of stability.
Freedom Seekers: Two Parallel Paths
This is where the fork in the road appears:
1. Contracting / Freelancing / Consulting
You’re still adjacent to the 9–5 ecosystem, but you’re not absorbed by it. You “rent” your skills without being adopted into the family drama. Risks? Contracts end. Work dries up. But you keep sovereignty.
2. Solopreneurship / Entrepreneurship
You cut the cord completely. Build your own house, your own family, your own rules. The risk is higher—it can take 3–5 years (sometimes more) for stability to show up.
But the ecosystem is yours. Fully.
Ultimately, neither is “better.”
Both are forms of sovereignty. Both are ways of saying: I will no longer let myself be re-traumatized by work that asks me to betray myself.
My Choice (For Now)
I straddle both.
I contract for some months or up to a year to keep the bills paid. (And then turn my LinkedIn “open to recruiters” button to let recruiters know I’m ready for the highest bidder.)
And
I build my business so the pressure isn’t all on one fragile foundation.
It’s not perfect. Or ideal.
But it’s mine.
And since we’ve been working our whole lives. The question now is not whether we work.
The question is how.
How do you want to work? Where? With whom? Why?
What risks are you willing to carry—and which ones are you done with?
Closing the Loop
Every season offers a new choice.
Maybe this year you contract. Next year, you go fully solo. Or maybe you pause, regroup, and re-enter a workplace with new boundaries.
None of it is fail-safe.
That’s not the point.
The point is: you’ve already survived countless cycles of work.
You already know how to pivot.
Now the invitation is to stop reenacting unhealthy dynamics, and to start crafting work as a path to equanimity, wholeness, and truth.
Because work is the constant.
But the form? That’s yours to decide.
✨ Ready to cut the cord (or at least loosen it)? Start with the Career Clarity Checklist or Ranking System for Crisis and your Career/Work Path