After significant soul-searching, mental exhaustion, and self-disparagement, I write to advise of my decision to resign from the position that I, Beth 2023, created for myself. Given the thousands of hours of emails, zoom calls, strategy sessions, and social media posts I dedicated to this Dream Job, I feel an explanation is warranted.

But first, I want you know there will be no finding of fault or failure. Recriminations are over.

It’s true that when I first left BigLaw, my once-robust imagination had shriveled to the size of a raisin. But I did not know this eighteen months ago even if comes as no surprise now. My thinking was tragically small because the environment I existed in for twenty years was tragically small. So when I left, I really thought founding and operating my own firm was the highest, most expansive professional achievement available to someone like me. In fact, the move felt monumental, courageous, novel—subversive even. But it was none of these things.

As I write this, I am tempted to regret the hundreds of hours I spent designing my website, refining my service offerings, and perfecting my messaging only to “pivot” and do it all over again. I carry embarrassment about these false starts, but I also know everything I felt and everything I did led me to here—to this moment, this letter, this magnificent resignation of a job—a life—that is far too small.

But because I am a very committed person—a person who keeps her word and powers through adversity by doing things—it simply took the time it took to finally see what was underneath all the doing this whole time.

In fact, I truly believe I couldn’t know what was underneath it all until I experienced . . .

·      the bewildering lack of motivation to work the Dream Job I created for my own self.

·      the confusion about what—precisely—I wanted to do with my firm and who—precisely—I am called to serve.

·      the daily exercise of bending myself into an entrepreneurial model that should have been a perfect fit.

·      the weird attempts to publicly project a firm vision when, in reality, everything was obscure and impalpable.  

·      the rebrand after the rebrand after the rebrand.

·      the mind fog, the mind-fxck, the fatigue, the internal gaslighting.

·      and finally, the question: Is the “Dream Job” the actual dream?

·      then the question under the question: Do I even want to lawyer anymore?

And there it was—hanging out right there under all my busyness and bewilderment—the answer.

No.

No, I do not want to lawyer anymore.*

And there it was—hanging out right there

under all my busyness and bewilderment—the answer.

I thought this admission would be really scary to say. To type. To read in black and white. But it’s not. I feel as if one thousand pounds has lifted. I feel open like a first full breath. I feel tender, vulnerable to injury like new skin, but true.

I do not feel the pressure to perform or the pressure to avoid failure. I feel steady, curious, and ready for what’s next. I am teeming with vision for what is next, but unhurried.

I feel . . . happy. I feel . . . at peace.

Both of these are new feelings, but in them, there is a simple clarity. Working in a Dream Job that is not the actual dream is extremely hard and complex. Opening myself to a life built upon the bigness that has always been in me is pretty damn simple. 

“Choose your hard,” they say, and I agree. But there is a galaxy of difference between the hard that is growing into your bigness and the hard of staying small. So I choose big.

As I conclude this resignation letter, I thank 2023 Beth. She took the risk that got me here, and nothing has been wasted or lost. I will take every success, every failure, every skill, every strength, and every shred of knowledge I’ve cultivated as a practicing attorney, and I will be using all of it to create something that transcends every title, position, or identity that shaped my journey to this moment.

Thus, it’s with immense gratitude and peace that I now lay down my many years of effort and service trying to mend and cure and balance the world as an attorney. The end of an era. The beginning of a new one. And it starts now.

It’s time to fxck up the world.