Letter #43 – ✍️ Writing in Seattle 🌲

This week’s freedom & joy notes:

• The wishing game

• A new career path

• Be a curious child

Hi friends and fam, ♥️

Hope May has treated you kindly.

Seattle’s been pulling all four seasons in a single day lately 🥶🥵, but we still soaked up so much good time with friends and all that gorgeous nature.

What’s your biggest quest for June? Share with us!

The Wishing Game 🧞‍♂️

Have you heard of the "Wishing Game" story? Here’s how it goes.

Five children are playing a game. Each child gets one wish, and the child with the "best" wish wins.

First child: "I wish for the most trendy toy!"

Second child: "I wish I owned the toy store, so I could have as many toys as I want."

Third child: "I wish for a billion dollars. Then I could buy toys, and anything else I want."

Fourth child: "I wish for three more wishes. One wish for a toy store, one for a billion dollars, and the third for even more wishes. Then I could keep wishing forever."

Everyone thinks the fourth child has won. Then the fifth child says… (make your guess, the answer is at the end of this note 😉)

A new career path

A rumor Tyler has been spreading

So Tyler has been telling people: "Angie is interviewing for jobs..."

Not entirely wrong, but the accurate version is, “Angie interviewed for ONE job, just for fun.”

I'd ignored every recruiting email until one landed that said, "100% remote. Last offsite was in Cancun."

That one got my attention. 😂

So I gave it a try with zero preparation. No portfolio, no practice. I was so casual about it that I didn't even ask about the salary (usually the first thing I ask on any first call.)

Of course I only made it to the second round. LOL

That reminded me: never do anything half 🍑. No matter the outcome, I never feel good when I do.

It also made me realize how much AI has changed the craft.

And that was the end of the rumor, but the beginning of a real reflection about my career path.

A fish in the water

I was a UX Designer for about 9 years.

Me and UX? Like a fish in water. Almost no struggle, just natural flow.

And in so many ways, it's a wonderful career:

💰 High pay (ever wonder how we got to FIRE so quickly?)
💞 Kind and wonderful coworkers (I never believed it for a second when people said you can't be friends with your coworkers, my whole career proved otherwise)
😌 The chillest job on the market (which gave me a semi-FIRE life years before I actually retired)

So why am I considering closing this door? 🚪

I'd been sitting with this for months. It wasn't until the "interview for fun" moment that it finally clicked:

The one thing I don't have much left for this career is CURIOSITY.

Be a curious child

Curiosity is the foundation of our mental health.

It helps us learn, grow, and find joy.

The older we get, the more we lose that childlike wonder where everything felt magical and new. ✨👁️👁️✨

It plays a key role in purpose and fulfillment.

Don't get me wrong. If a UX opportunity knocked on my door, I wouldn't turn it away. I still love the craft and the connections it brings.

But right now, there's another door wide open for me to walk through and follow my curiosity.

No financial pressure. Just pure joy.

I'll enter it. 🙂

(More on the paths I've been tinkering with 👉 next letter.)

And the fifth child says

“I wish to be so content that I don't need any more wishes.”

Did you guess it right?

When I was in the thick of figuring out what's next, what would actually bring me fulfillment, I came across this teaching by Joseph Goldstein:

“No one seems to know how useful it is to be useless.

To become useless is to settle back and allow our own nature to express itself in a simple and easy way.

Settle back and let it be as it is, free of any striving, free of any idea of attaining anything.

There’s nothing to be, nothing to do, and nothing to have.”

May we all carry a little of that fifth child's wisdom, and may our wishes come true. 🙏

Hope it's helpful for your journey to Freedom.

Love you to freedom and back, 🫰

Angie & Tyler

Things We are Loving Right Now ❤️‍🔥

• 🩲 Merino Wool Undies: You may already know that we’re huge fans of merino wools and these undies are just soooooo comfortable. I brought them with some other cotton ones with me when traveling but found myself only reaching for them. 🤭

• 💣 Cookbook: We crashed our friends’ cookbook club and OMG every single recipe hits. The Chinese-Southern fusion in this one is chef's kiss.