Rose-Tinted Doubt
I've recently changed jobs.
Not in a dramatic, burn-the-bridges kind of way. More in the quiet, unsettling way where the decision makes sense on paper, but your emotions lag behind.
It wasn’t an easy call. I had to weigh everything: pay, trajectory, work–life balance, identity, the social side. And because it wasn’t easy, my mind keeps inviting doubt back in. Any crack in the logic, any nostalgic feeling, and I’m open to re-litigating the whole thing.
When doubt creeps in, it tends to wear rose-tinted glasses.
I catch myself focusing on the positives of what I left. The laughs. The familiarity. The people. Especially the people. When you leave a job, you don’t just leave work - you leave a small social ecosystem that once gave your weeks shape.
And when I miss that social side, I’m not lying to myself. It was there.
But when I sit with it properly - not nostalgically, but honestly - the picture changes.
I’ve started thinking about companies as ships.
Every company is a ship heading somewhere, whether that direction is clear or not. Strategy, leadership, incentives, culture - they all determine the course.
My colleagues… are my crew.
Some ships are old and knackered, in need of serious repair. Others look sleek and prestigious but are quietly sailing toward places you don’t want to end up.
From the outside, it’s easy to admire the paintwork.
The ship I was on had a strong crew. Smart people. Funny people. People I genuinely liked. The social side was real. But the conditions mattered too. And if I’m honest, a lot of that socialising felt like being shackled in the lower deck together - drinking, laughing, bonding - while knowing the ship itself wasn’t heading somewhere good.
We weren’t celebrating because things were great. We were coping together.
There’s a strange comfort in that kind of shared struggle. When everyone around you feels the same tension, the same frustration, it becomes normal. Even bonding. You stop questioning the conditions because at least you’re not alone in them.
That’s the part rose-tinted glasses leave out.
Yes, the social side existed. But it existed within a set of constraints that weren’t healthy - long-term uncertainty, misaligned direction, a sense of drift. The laughter didn’t cancel that out; it just made it easier to tolerate for a while.
Changing ships means giving that up.
It means quieter days. Fewer instant jokes. Less of that “we’re in this together” energy. And that absence can feel like loss, even if the trade was intentional.
But there’s also something clarifying about stepping onto a vessel with a clearer heading.
Even if the journey is lonelier at first.
I think doubt often shows up not because a decision was wrong, but because it was meaningful. Easy decisions don’t haunt you. The ones that force you to weigh trade-offs do.
So when I notice myself idealising the past, I’m trying to zoom out. To remember the whole ship, not just the crew below deck. To ask where it was actually going - and whether I’d choose that destination again, knowing what I know now.
Most of the time, the answer is no.
And that doesn’t mean the memories were fake. It just means they weren’t the full story.
Sometimes growth looks less like excitement and more like choosing better conditions I guess - even if the bar is quieter, the laughter slower, and the adjustment uncomfortable.
Ships change. Crews rotate. Directions matter.
And occasionally, doubt is just nostalgia asking for a voice - not a verdict.
Yes change can be scary