In my first months at Amazon in 2021, I learned something new every hour.
Now I learn something new every three months or six months.
Same company.
Same job.
The only thing that changed is me. I figured out how the machine works.
Nobody warns you about this part of the dream.
Yesterday I read Justin Welsh’s Saturday essay, Just one more year. It was written for solopreneurs/entrepreneur, people who run businesses. I work for one of the biggest companies on earth. It still read like he had been watching me.
He says that over five years he has received thousands of emails that say some version of: “I’m making great money, but I hate what I do.” The people who write them, he says, seem almost embarrassed to admit they’re bored or miserable in a situation other people might kill for.
I read that line twice.
The dream had an expiry date I didn’t see
In college, I fantasized about Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. How did they grow so fast? I wanted inside, to learn their processes, their tools, their secrets.
Like every CS student, I also dreamed of my own startup. I put that dream in a drawer. I wrote about the college version of me in Big Tech Dreams vs. Reality.
Then I got in. The first week was awesome. Two months in, I still woke up on Mondays fully charged. Amazon had built its own software for everything, and every internal tool was a door to a room I had never seen.
Then year two. A promotion. Then another year. And so on.
Somewhere in there, Monday started to feel heavier.
Amazon didn’t do anything wrong. Once you know how the machine works, the machine stops teaching you. AI has brought new tools, and they are genuinely new, but the nature of the work is the same. The learning curve that used to point straight up went flat.
That is what a dream job becomes after five years. Just another Tuesday.
I felt the first crack last year and wrote Why We Lose Our Spark? Back then, I told myself to lean into the work. That was right for that season. I’m not sure it’s right forever.
Why we kick the ball down the road
Justin describes the trap, and I recognize every piece of it.
You worked for years to get here. Walking away feels like betraying your younger self. You’d be leaving money on the table, and the title, and the expectations of your family, friends, and boss.
So you say: one more year. I’ll change something next year.
For many people, as Justin writes, “one more year” turns into five, ten, twenty. They just get even better at work they no longer love.
I’ve watched this loop before, with visas instead of jobs. Indians in the US saying “we’ll move back in 2028” until a decade disappears. It is different cage but same lock.
My answer to Justin’s question
Justin asks:
Would you rather make the same money you make today running the business you have now, or half of what you make building something you’re genuinely excited about?
My honest answer is awkward. I already chose less than half. When I moved from the US back to India, I accepted making less than half of what I earned there.
So money isn’t what’s holding me back. It’s something harder to admit. I’ve lost some trust in my ability to build something of my own.
Years inside a giant system will do that. You get very good at your piece. You forget you can build the whole thing.
So it doesn’t mean you quit tomorrow. Instead make smaller moves. Experiment in your spare time.
So last night, I made a decision. I’m doubling down on what I love, in the hours that are mine.
The business in our home
Three months ago, my wife started Chikooo Nails & Mehendi Studio from our home. It is already profitable.
Our rhythm is simple. I give directions. She executes. Some of my directions have been wrong. Some worked beautifully. Either way, she is a great executor, better than myself.
Until the end of this year, she gets my spare time. Anything she needs on the tech side, I’m her person. With AI, one engineer can now do what used to take a small agency.
Our plan has two steps:
Make the pipeline bigger. Offer more kinds of services so more kinds of clients find her. I think we’ve done this.
Make the pipeline full. That’s the next two months: bringing the right clients through the door, and bringing them back.
It’s small. It won’t replace my salary. That’s not the point.
The point is that I’m learning every hour again. Pricing. Marketing. Networking.
What makes a stranger trust a small studio run from someone’s home. And every time a new client books, we’re both proud. Not performance-review proud. Built-it-ourselves proud.
What I’m taking from this
You don’t have to burn down your career to get your spark back. You only have to stop waiting for next year.
Annie Dillard put it in one line in The Writing Life:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
“One more year” isn’t a plan. It’s a decision you make again every Monday.
This Monday, I’m deciding differently.
If you’re in the same place, with a good job and quiet Mondays, tell me in the comments: what are you building on the side? And if you’ve already made this move, I’d love your advice.
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