What If You Were Doing Everything Right And Still Running In Place?
I’ve been circling this thought for years. The months leading up to now have been brutal — because it goes against nearly every piece of advice I’ve ever been given:
“If you endure long enough, you’ll be rewarded with progress.”
But the reason I keep returning to this thought is simple:
I have been enduring.
For a long time.
I’ve done what’s supposedly considered “right”:
- Automatically saving.
- Automatically investing.
- Paying my bills on time.
- Cleaning my apartment once a week.
- Working out two to three times a week.
- Canceling subscriptions that no longer serve me.
- Cutting out friendships that were dragging more than elevating.
On paper, this is stability.
In practice, it’s maintenance.
Because the thing that keeps dragging me back onto the same treadmill — over and over — is my job.
I’ve been at the warehouse for four years. It’ll be five soon.
And no matter how disciplined I become outside of work, it keeps kicking me in the teeth.
Everyone Else Seems to Be Moving Ahead, Except Me
My job at the warehouse has been cutting back on hours — our freight volume decreased — and money has become the source of a lot of people’s anxiety lately.
It’s the same old stories you hear:
- We’re not making our hours.
- How am I supposed to pay my bills?
- Would I be able to get another job?
But the stories that always cut me the deepest are when coworkers start saying they’re either looking for a new job, today is their last day, or they’re moving into a newer position.
It felt like someone stabbed me in the head.
It’s not jealousy.
It doesn’t feel like envy.
It’s grief.
I’m grieving because the coworkers who made work bearable are leaving.
I’m grieving because I waited for my turn to leave, but I’m still stuck waiting because I was told waiting would lead to progress.
A Job Process That Convinced Me That Waiting Was a Virtue
I’ve been trying to get into CBP for two years; I’ve been waiting for the next part of the process after completing the physical and medical exams, and it’s been quiet since.
As I was undergoing the process — after failing my first attempt with the home exams — I thought I was making progress and doing something else with myself.
The CBP officers I used to work with at my job told me the government process is very slow and it would take time to get through the next steps.
Their advice?
Wait until the process said you can’t continue.
So, I waited — because I was told that waiting was the reasonable and responsible thing to do next.
The Waiting is Hurting Me as Much as Enduring Has
The CBP hiring process is out of my hands, so I pushed the thought of it into the back of my mind and forgot about it for months.
That is, until a coworker reminded me that I was trying to get into a government job.
He mentioned leaving to become a correctional officer and that he was taking the test when he got home from work.
The fact that he was already undergoing the process told me that he was serious about leaving.
I felt the knife in my head twist sharper.
What am I supposed to do now?
Everyone else is leaving, making progress, tackling new challenges and opportunities, and I’m… jogging in place.
What This Feels Like in a Moving Body Going Nowhere
When you’re jogging in place, it feels as though nothing you’ve been doing is making things better.
When progress doesn’t arrive after a long span of effort, even meaningful and creative work feels suspiciously like coping.
I hate that it feels like that.
I’ve finally stabilized my life; I made sure my foundations weren’t going to collapse from under me, but now trying to go past the stabilizing phase feels like I’m trying to drag a ton of weight on my back and blaming myself when the weight drags me instead.
I’ve been paying the price of being responsible, being patient, and everything is showing up in my day-to-day:
- I get up at 2 a.m.
- I get to work by 4 a.m.
- I sleep in my car before my shift to get parking.
- I barely eat, but it’s canned food or spicy noodles rather than home-cooked meals.
- I’m still awake staring at my iPad screen or at my ceiling at 11 p.m. – 12 a.m.
I can’t trust myself to bother trying something new because everything I built would destabilize faster than it took me to stabilize.
Not because I failed, or didn’t try hard enough; I’ve done all of that and more.
But each habit that kept me alive, kept me from collapsing from my constraints, became my own self-contained prison.
And yet my mind is screaming for movement, while my body likes keeping things the same.
The mismatch between my body wanting to remain in place and my mind screaming, “this can’t be all there is to my life,” wants to move.
My mind wants evidence that everything I’ve been working on, and working towards, wasn’t for nothing.
However, I don’t know what my next step is.
What This Feeling is Doing to Me
When my constraints and stability have been long overdue for payment, I haven’t been able to see beyond my today.
The future is terrifying. It has many unknowns, and it could collapse the very floor under my feet if I fail to plan ahead.
But plan for what?
Where am I supposed to go next?
What else could I be doing?
Too many questions, so few answers, and I can’t even begin to imagine what small step I could take to lift 1–5% of this weight off of my back.
I’ve learned that showing up keeps the weight from crushing me, but it doesn’t automatically lift it.
That part is still mine to figure out.
If You Made It to The End
If this landed for you in any way:
You don’t need to explain it or respond.
Explore The Archives
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- An Archival Look of Chaotic Life Strong: 280+ Weeks of Experimenting, Adapting, and Improvised Warm-Up Flow
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Gifts From The Archives
- The Stratagem’s Manifesto 1.0–You’re Not Falling Behind—You’re a Work in Progress
- Why The Stratagem’s Manifesto 1.1 Exists (and What It Means for Me, and Maybe You)
- The Stratagem’s Manifesto 1.5: You’re Not Falling Behind—You’re Growing
- The Stratagem’s Manifesto 2.0: A Companion Ebook
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