I had planned for this week’s post to be a travel guide to Cologne. I had also planned to publish every Tuesday. But one thing I’m learning—both through travel and through this larger life transition—is that consistency and rigidity are not the same thing.

Sometimes things shift. Sometimes timelines change. Sometimes the original plan quietly stops fitting the reality you’re living inside.

Lately, a lot has been shifting.

Looking back, my life seems to have moved in strange three-month chapters.

• In May, I was given three months’ notice that my role at Google would be eliminated.

• In June, I committed to a solo trip and spent three months planning it.

• In August, I left for Europe and spent three months traveling.

And when I came home, I moved almost immediately into the next phase: starting a full-time job at Trader Joe’s while trying to build a consulting business on the side.

At first, Trader Joe’s felt like a thoughtful decision. I wanted distance from corporate America. I wanted movement, structure, social interaction, and something tangible after years of abstract strategy work and endless meetings. I also wanted strong benefits while giving myself space to figure out what came next. And in many ways, it was exactly that.

The people were genuinely kind. The culture felt refreshingly human. After years in corporate environments, there was something grounding about work that was immediate and physical: stocking shelves, helping customers, moving constantly, solving practical problems in real time.

But what I underestimated was the cost—not necessarily in effort, but in energy. Working 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shifts slowly reshaped my entire day. I’d come home wired, struggle to decompress, sleep later than planned, and spend the next morning trying to mentally recover before doing it all over again.

And somewhere along the way, I realized something uncomfortable: I wasn’t actually building anything. I was staying busy.

There’s a difference.

I kept on trying to start my consulting business by trying to squeeze ambition into fragmented one-hour windows between exhaustion and recovery. I was then left wondering why the business felt stalled before it had really begun.

But building something meaningful—especially something from scratch—doesn’t happen in leftover fragments of energy. It needs sustained attention, mental clarity, momentum, and space to breathe.

And I didn’t really have any of those things.

At the same time, I started noticing smaller moments that stayed with me longer than they should have: moments where I realized I was spending more time checking expiration dates than using the skills and experience I had spent twenty years developing.

Underneath all of that was a quieter realization: I didn’t leave corporate life just to create another version of misalignment.

When I anticipated my layoff, I moved in with my parents to reduce expenses and create financial breathing room. I still had COBRA coverage. I had savings. I had flexibility. I had a safety net.

In other words, I had already created the conditions to take a risk.

So eventually, the question became unavoidable: What exactly was I waiting for?

A few days later, I put in my notice.

Ironically, I ended up staying at Trader Joe’s for—you guessed it—three months.

Leaving was anything but easy. Walking away meant leaving behind people I genuinely cared about. Some of the kindest, most curious, and most authentic people I’ve worked with in a long time were there. That part surprised me.

But I also knew, with increasing clarity, that if I wanted to build something meaningful, I needed to stop treating it like a side project: not halfway, not “when I have time,” not squeezed into leftover hours after exhausting shifts.

Fully.

So now, for the first time in a long time, I’m trying something different.

I’m giving my full attention to building the life and work I actually want instead of constantly reacting to what feels safest, most logical, or most externally defensible. That includes developing my consulting business and nurturing Fork & Footpath.

I’m still learning. But I’m beginning to understand that there’s a difference between filling your time and building something intentional that brings you so much joy that it doesn’t feel like work.