Good at something you never loved

Five years, and she has never liked this job. Not hated it — hating something would at least be easy to name. It's just that every morning she opens the file and feels nothing at all.

She works fast, so the hard tasks all find their way to her desk. Then one day her boss said it: you were born to do this. It sounded like praise, but something got tighter after that — once you're the person born for the job, there's no room left for being tired of it. Everyone tells her she's good. Nobody has asked if she likes it.

Some mornings she sits in front of the screen with a coffee she poured early and never touched. No excitement, no dread. She used to think that was lucky — at least she isn't miserable. But if you hate something, you at least know what you want instead. Not hating it is the harder part, because there's no trail to follow.

That night she opened a job board, left it there, and closed it. This salary is still paying for her younger sibling's school, she likes to say. But if she sits with it a little longer, she knows the truth: ask her what she'd switch to, and she has no answer. In the end she didn't quit. She just circled two empty squares on the week's calendar — two evenings that belong to no one else.

Not being able to change careers yet is fine. Every week still has a part that's mine.

Some seasons, nothing changes at all. But those two empty squares — those she gets to keep. Which square did you leave open for yourself this week?