New Narratives

We might not be ok. And that’s ok.

The stories we tell

I’m spending more time on LinkedIn these days. What used to be mostly career updates and professional calling cards has become something else too: personal reflections on the fallout from the crack-up of foreign aid, announcements of who has landed where, and—at times—a never-ending wake for the industry and work many of us used to be part of.

But like all social media, LinkedIn pushes certain kinds of narratives. Because it’s a place where prospective employers, former colleagues, and the broader professional world are watching, it strongly favors triumphalist stories: I landed on my feet. I’m excited about what’s next. Everything is unfolding as it should.

I genuinely applaud the people who are breaking that mold and posting more honestly. Still, the logic of LinkedIn is stronger than any individual post. It nudges us toward optimism, resolution, and professional coherence—whether or not those things reflect our actual lives.

That wouldn’t matter so much if the underlying reality felt more stable. But it doesn’t.

A year has passed. So many talented people I know are still unemployed, and I’ve been feeling increasingly unsettled about where this is all heading.

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Confronting reality

I keep returning to a concept I encountered last year: the Stockdale Paradox, coined by Jim Collins and described in the book Good to Great. It captures the mindset of people who survive prolonged adversity.

It goes like this:

“You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

One of the brutal facts of our current reality is that the labor market is not clearing. There are more capable professionals than there are jobs to absorb them. I do believe we will prevail in the end—but I’ve come to deeply question the terms by which we will prevail.

I’m not convinced that everyone will land in professional jobs. And that doubt is compounded by another brutal fact: technology is advancing quickly and has already begun replacing certain kinds of work.

So the questions become harder and more uncomfortable:

What if prevailing doesn’t look like professional recovery?
What if some of us never get back to what we had?

Purpose doesn’t pay the bills

These questions came into sharper focus for me last fall at a conference I attended with a friend and former colleague. The gathering centered on ikigai—the idea that purpose lives at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs.

It was thoughtful, inspiring, and sincere. And throughout it, my friend and I kept turning to each other and asking some version of the same question:

How does anyone make money in this scenario? How does this lead to me getting a job?

Purpose is all well and good. But livelihoods matter just as much if not more. If I was carrying any trace of the belief that finding our purpose will naturally lead to financial stability, 2025 fully shattered it.

The reality is that meaning and income are not reliably aligned. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone to pay the rent, cover healthcare, or support a family.

Redefining what it means to prevail in the end

Increasingly, I believe that we need new narratives of success.

Prevailing may not include landing a job that restores the pay, benefits, and meaning we once had.

It may mean taking a job just for the health insurance, earning less than we once did, starting a small business, consulting to make ends meet, relying on mutual aid and shared support, and finding simple abundance rather than upward mobility.

I’ve heard multiple stories of former aid professionals taking jobs in school systems. The pay is a big step down, but I deeply admire the practicality of meeting the moment—choosing stability, benefits, and contribution over waiting indefinitely for something “better.”

I want to hear more stories like that.

Part of this reframe also means accepting that our material standard of living may not return to what it once was—while still believing that life can be full. It might mean building the kinds of communities that can hold us when we don’t have enough on our own. Taking comfort in the resilience that comes from shared experience and from knowing we’re not facing this situation alone.

Living into a new story

This is the storyline I’m trying to live into. And I’m hungry for more examples of what it looks like in practice.

I celebrate every instance of someone who finds something as good as—or better than—what they had before. But I also recognize that these are not the only stories worth telling.

For me, it’s genuinely comforting to believe that even if I’m never again as professionally “successful” as I was in December of 2024, I can still be ok.

And maybe, over time, even better than ok.

Helping Sustain and Expand Career Pivot

To meet our mission of empowering you through this transition we’ve put together a team of former USAID colleagues who—just like you—had the rug pulled out from under them. We pay them a stipend ($25/hr) to develop resources, source content, run events, and whatever else it takes support our community. Without their efforts, Career Pivot would falter.

To continue supporting you through your transition, we need additional funding to cover the hours our team puts in. If you’ve benefited from our work and have the resources to help, here are two ways you can reinvesting in the collective:

1. Signing up for an discounted annual subscription right now

2. Funding us through the BuyMeACoffee Platform