How do we know when we've found our 'thing'?

Reflections from a train journey.

“I can tell you a story about the people who lived there. Several of the people who lived there.”

I turn to face my dad. The dappled light from a sunny-ish day is reflected in his beard. I notice now that it’s mostly silver with flecks of ginger, instead of the other way around.

“Yeah?” I ask.

Dad launches into a story. Several stories, actually. I tune in and out because I’m wondering if I look the same way my dad does when he tells a story—lots of hand gestures, eyebrows lifting and lowering in tandem with his intonation.

We’re on the train because my laptop died a sudden and tragic death. I’ve had it since I started my freelance business.

In fact, my dad gifted it to me when he was forced to retire. He lost his eyesight over the span of about 20 years. Sometimes I wonder if it was worse for him, knowing it was coming.

When dad lost his job, unbeknownst to us both, he gifted me my freelance career. That sweet little MacBook accompanied me over the past five years, as I freelanced my way through all kinds of projects. It’s the only time my parents would have been able to afford to gift me something like that.

So we’re on the train to the nearest city, in the hopes of purchasing a replacement laptop. I’m paying this time.

Dad never says no to a train journey. I think it’s because he gets to travel through the beautiful places he used to work. The Norfolk countryside is obscure in its flatness. But remarkable, in that you can see much further into the distance.

Dad mimics the curve of the river with his hand, telling me how the water snakes towards the horizon. It’s just beyond our eyeline, but that doesn’t matter – dad knows this land like the back of his hand.

It’s one of things I love most about him. His years spent working along the rivers gave him a fascinatingly niche pool of knowledge.

Family trips at the weekend would revolve around visiting flood defences that dad had designed, built, and maintained throughout his career. It makes me chuckle to think about how much me and my brother used to complain.

I’d wonder why we couldn’t do the ‘normal’ things ‘normal kids’ do. Would it hurt to visit Legoland, or go to the pool?

Now I realise, dad simply wanted to bring us into his world. He was proud, and passionate. He believed in the work he was doing. He was fully aware of his impact, and he was excited to share it. I think if work can make you feel that way, you’d want to hang onto it as long as you can.

“…if none of us had to work for money, we’d probably work for something more meaningful instead.”

I look up at my dad, after reading last month’s edition of my newsletter. He’s grinning. Call me vain, but I feel like he’s seeing me more clearly than he has before. Dad, of course, doesn’t get to read my work for himself. So I get the unbridled joy of his real-time reaction when I read him something I’ve written.

Anyway, it’s our stop. And I need to replace the laptop he gifted me so I can keep on working. So I can keep on writing. So I can hang onto that feeling as long as I can.

Big love,

~ Ebony-Storm x

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The resource section

👶 I didn’t plan for this edition to have a ‘dad’ theme, but this piece in the Guardian about the ‘unique effect’ fathers have on their children’s educational outcomes is not to be missed. I still credit my interviewing skills to my parents, who answered every single ‘but WHY?’ question I hurled at them as a child.

🌐 Cool charts alert! If you’re a fan of visualisations, this Worklytics piece shows you what well-executed distributed work looks like. Spoiler: it’s not answering your Slack messages every 5 minutes.

💡 The average half life of most skills is less than five years, so we’re all gonna need to do it – several times over. But what should reskilling look like in the age of AI? Read this HBR piece to find out. (Or listen to it – there’s a handy audio feature just under the summary)