It's another morning like any other. You realised change is difficult; change is hard. But you changed not in spite of that, but accepting that. It wasn't easy shifting the Covid pounds, but you did. Once you shifted them, you even gained some — content with the turgid swelling in your arms, from hard days forging iron into steel at the gym.
You can't help, though, as you return home from your run, thinking... what was it all for? As you open your phone to log your run on Strava (a 5:10 pace, you're improving)... is your motivation health? Or vanity? Why do you care so much about posting your time?
You see a picture of you and your partner too. Your lock screen. She insisted on taking it, of course, you were never one for selfies. Why are you so against having your form captured, you wonder? Is it perhaps because Sales, as a business, only rewards change? For long since you "got good", or at least, were regarded as such, you've known it's a game of trends. Of patterns and pattern disrupters. To be stagnant would be to no longer be learning. You've changed, but how long until you change again?
How long before you're slimmer than you are in this photo? How long before you're wearing a nicer shirt? For all that 22 year old you could never have dreamed of the money you're making — there's always a more expensive restaurant, a more expensive wine. A more expensive car. How long before you change from the simple pleasures that your partner enjoys? How long before you're incompatible?
You pause. You don’t want to think about the next question, but it gnawingly grinds its way into your skull like a maggot, burrowing deep within your brain. How long before you’re handsome enough that you can have a prettier girlfriend?
You kill the brain bug. She’s beautiful, and you love her. Her smile, her capacity for kindness. The way her messy, melodic laugh rings out in almost a child-like way — as if someone had just discovered a bell for the first time. Why can’t you be happy like her, you wonder?
No, not happy. That’s not the word. Content.
She doesn’t *care* about her progression. She cares, of course. She celebrates a promotion with her friends, but in the true fashion of a corporate promotion, she largely sits and waits until “there’s headcount.” You didn’t! Where’s the action plan? The 5 year plan? You had to work for this! Litres of political guile and sweat spent schmoozing, working unsavoury hours — how else does a BDR become an AE? How could they sit back and just wait!
You pause your rage. The sweat from your run makes the phone difficult to grip. The screen is slightly hazy, as your eyes struggle to focus from your tremulous grip as your heartbeat acclimatises to the welcome respite of your chair.
When, you wonder, did the goal even become being good at Sales? You wanted to be a writer, for God’s sake.
Regardless, it’s 8:30AM. You’ve got a demo to attend. It’s time to log on, and check if there’s any inbounds. Just as you have done every other day.
That never really changes.
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