On Learning To See What Was Always There
Whose brilliant idea was it for us to decide our entire lives before our frontal lobes have fully formed?
And, to that point, what evolutionary purpose could there possibly be in making the part of our brain responsible for …
1. risk assessment,
2. planning,
3. impulse control,
4. decision-making, and
5. complex logical thinking
…the last to mature?
When I started college, I knew I wanted to be a psych major, which was the last thing I knew for a few decades.
I remember the first time I felt the weight of professional confusion.
It was during the year before graduation.
You know, that time you’re supposed to decide your future—when you’re expected to take your first steps towards forever.
For me, it was more like: three years of college and all I got was this lousy elephant on my chest.
Yes, it was metaphorical, and yes, I’m being melodramatic, but I’m pretty sure the goal was clarity, not the feeling of an animal the size of a house mistaking me for a chair.
So what do you do when you don’t know what to do?
One option is to use what other people tell you about yourself. Maybe they see something you don’t.
I heard “You should be a lawyer” a lot. I finished with a minor in legal studies, so sure. Let’s go to law school.
This is not a great reason to go. 0/10—do not recommend.
I’ll cut through the super fun experience of the Socratic method and being graded on a C+ curve in almost every class. You can imagine the good times for yourself. I wouldn’t want to spoil the fantasy with reality.
What I will say is that I tried to make the best of things, working hard to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
I graduated in 2008. The Great Recession. Every possible job offer I had lined up disappeared. Hiring freezes abound.
So I did what all recent law school grads in free fall do: send my resume literally everywhere.
And voilà! I had a career in Social Security disability law. It didn’t seem to matter that I had no idea what it was.
Now, nearly 20 years later, I’m still at it.
If the pattern isn’t obvious, let me spell it out. I’ve spent about half my life doing something because of a ‘throw everything against the wall and see what sticks’ strategy.
I can’t complain. I’ve worked with some amazing people, and I’ve felt fulfilled in helping those in vulnerable situations.
But it doesn’t feel like me. It’s felt like a life that worked and made sense. But never me.
About five years ago, I hit a moment that forced me to reevaluate—well—everything. I challenged my relationship with myself, my relationships with others, and my relationship with the world.
And during this time, my health unfortunately worsened. My pain levels spiked, I needed multiple surgeries, and I just stopped being able to do as much as I used to.
If you’ve never experienced this (and I really hope you haven’t), these changes inevitably come with grief. Grief for who you thought you’d be and what you can no longer do.
In a very real way, you’re mourning yourself, but just like with every loss, eventually you get to a point where its edges dull, even if just a little.
Only then are you able to see the whole you clearly as you are now. The still cans and the not anymores.
After years of floating through life, I was determined to build my new identity with intention.
My limitations created imperfection, sure, but they also created vision for the first time in my life. At least for my understanding of who I am.
The career part never really came up. I mean, this is what I know how to do. It never occurred to me that there could be something else.
Until…you guessed it…a force outside my control gave me another shove.
January 2025 arrived, and I’m a federal employee. It wasn’t (still isn’t) a great time to be one of those.
I had no idea if I was going to have a job the next week, and so I had to figure out what came next. And fast.
I began working with a wonderful career coach who told me she would help me find my North Star.
I was a bit skeptical that I even had one, but you never know unless you try.
(Side note: when I decide to do something, I do it. I’m Type A, persistent, and a researcher. Some may call me a pain in the ass; I call it determined.)
I wanted a North Star, so I was all in.
I did every assignment. Thought about every insight and question from my sessions. Researched every.single.job that maybe, just maybe, could be the one.
And yet, still nothing. No shimmer, no spark.
But I kept on trucking because I had become sure of one thing: I didn’t want to keep doing what I was doing.
Several months in, she asked me a question that changed everything.
If there were no limits, what would you do? It could be anything.
My first thought was a professional dancer. I don’t even remember anything else I said; that’s how wrong those answers were.
One day, we were talking about my obsessive reading habit, and my coach asked me if I ever thought about writing a book.
I said, “No. I’m not creative enough for that. Maybe I could look into going into the publishing world.”
She challenged me. I held firm.
I’m not creative.
Except she got me to admit that I’ve wanted to write a book since elementary school. I don’t know what kind of trickery (magic?) she used, but it worked.
There was my North Star.
It had been buried so deep inside me I’d forgotten it existed. In my mind, it lived on the same plane as winning the lottery.
Yet saying it out loud gave my star a little spark.
Could I? What if? How would I even start?
The idea tempted me, and I figured what’s the harm in dipping my toe? So I searched for a self-led, prerecorded creative writing course.
That felt safe. After all, no one had to read what I wrote, right?
About halfway through the course, there was an assignment to write a short story. That assignment changed everything.
I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote.
I wrote so much that I ended up with two novelettes, which is a fancy way of saying my word count went way beyond a short story…and a novella for that matter.
Somewhere in all this, I realized—I’m not just creative; I’m pretty good at this.
That’s a weird thing for me to say. I’m not usually one to ‘toot my own horn.’
But I’m going to because it’s true.
I know this because I took a risk and shared my work with friends and family, to very positive feedback.
Then I got braver and enrolled in an Intro to Novel Writing Course with an instructor who had been nominated for a Pushcart Award. She loved what I had written.
Buoyed by this newfound confidence, I decided to do the bravest thing I could think of. I’m sharing my work publicly. With you.
And I feel vulnerable. And nervous. And hopeful. And like this is what I’m meant to do.
So I’m running with it.
Fortunately, I’ve been preparing for this moment my whole life thanks to Alanis Morissette— there’s a reason I refer to her as Her Majesty. For nearly two decades, I’ve passionately sung along to her reminder that life has a funny way of helping you out when everything feels like it’s gone wrong.
And about three weeks ago, I thought everything had gone wrong when my health forced me to take a leave of absence from work.
But, it turns out, that time away became an opportunity.
I spent the month determined to make a real shift. Lay the foundation for a career doing what I love instead of what I just do.
One that feels like me.
It’s now the last week before I have to go back. I’ve decided to return only part time both for my health and for the opportunity to give this writing thing a real shot.
Because even though I’ve been unsuccessful in changing my entire life in a month—shocking, I know—I did manage to change my entire view of myself.
I’m now not only certain I’m a creative person, I realize I thrive on it. That I seek it out in every part of my life. That without it, I feel like a part of me is missing.
I also learned that I can hustle and be an entrepreneur.
And most importantly, I know that I can do hard and scary things.
Ironically, in walking the less traditional, less clear path, I feel my feet planted firmly on the ground.
The most ridiculous part of it all?
Everything I write has a psychology spin to it.
Turns out I knew what I wanted to do way back then. I just didn’t trust it.
This essay was previously published on my Substack, Molten Crystal, on January 29, 2026.
Lauren Reisner is a writer who enjoys deep diving into the why of who we are with equal parts humor and heart. She publishes personal essays and fiction twice weekly on her Substack, MoltenCrystal.substack.com, and is working on her first novel. You can find her at her keyboard.