I got laid off recently.

It was a bit of a shock when I heard about it. I was a high performer in the finance space: I was in a management position, my reviews were always good, and I got consistent raises. I was part of the fourth or fifth round of layoffs my company was experiencing (it's hard to keep up at this rate), and I always figured one day it might be me. Well, this time it was. Fourteen years is a good run without someone somewhere giving you the boot.

It's an odd feeling. Since I was a kid, I've always had things to do, places to be: a schedule to follow, a routine to adhere to, but one that was set by someone or something other than me. School, practice, internships, the office, company happy hours: I always had somewhere to be. Now, the day was mine.

When I heard about the layoffs, I was angry. Not because I got laid off: that's business. When your own CEO and CFO quit within the span of two weeks, you figure you're part of a sinking ship. I was angry because everyone else was told about this before I was. A small irritation compared to the situation at hand, but that’s pretty disrespectful nonetheless.

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I was coming back from a trip abroad when I found out the news. I still checked my Slack messages when I was overseas (don’t blame me, there's a reason I was considered a high performer), and nothing. In the airport on the way back, everything is normal. However, as soon as I landed, I get bombarded by text messages from my teammates sending condolences, telling me they thought the situation was fucked up, and wishing me the best of luck in my future endeavors. Nothing from my bosses, nothing from HR. I was stunned, and then I was pissed. It was a United flight too. My back was killing me.

I have a lot going on in my life. Yes, I had work, but I also have a love life, a family, friends, dreams and aspirations of being a writer, marathon training, not to mention some semblance of a personal life. I knew work was a large and important part of it, but I never realized just how large until I lost it.

When I got home, I was determined to not let getting laid off take me off course. I started the calculations in my head: what did I have, when was the mortgage due, what was I owed, who else do I owe what to and when. Cash flow is priority number one. After all, I have a mortgage.

Before I unpacked (even before I took off my shoes, to be more precise), I ran over to my desk, pushed aside the writing drafts I deemed to be unimportant, and took out a blank piece of paper. On the top, I wrote today’s date and in big block letters the words “TO DO TODAY” underneath. I then added four bullet points underneath to get me started.

I couldn’t think of a single thing to add to the list.

I started panicking a little. How the hell could I not think of one thing to do? Every day, it felt like I was getting busier and busier, but today I couldn’t find anything to keep me occupied. It felt like the Universe was punishing me. It looked like I had nothing else to do today except to write “To Do Today”.

I turned the office chair around and stared out the window. My view is a piece of the the skyline of New York City, and I kept looking at the cars zooming back and forth on Riverside Drive. I don’t remember how long I was in that spot, but it felt like hours. Dusk was starting to set when I got up. I looked back at the paper. TO DO TODAY. Four bullet points underneath. That’s it. I felt lousy.

I felt the day wasted. I felt the weight of the responsibilities that I had on my shoulders but trapped by a lack of direction. It wasn’t decision fatigue: I knew what it was that I had to do. What stifled me was the lack of urgency that I was feeling. Was any of it important? The voice deep inside me screamed back, “Of course!” Was any of it important now? Silence. It was deafening. Night was falling.

My eyes gravitated back to the empty to do list. TO DO TODAY. I took my pen and started doodling underneath the bullet points. It was a habit I developed since being a kid. It always puts a little smile on my face, hearing the scratching of a pen on paper without an aim. Block letters, little figures, tetrakis hexahedrons (google it): the once former to do list now looked like the back of a bored six grader’s math notebook.

Something on the top caught my eye: a line somewhere beneath the title, underneath the word TODAY. I sat back in the chair and stared at it for a few moments. Then it hit me. I picked up my pen and drew two little dots and a line on the paper.

TO DO: TODAY.

I took a look back at the writing drafts I had pushed aside on my desk. I picked them up and leafed through them: unfinished stories, jotted down ideas, character developments. I thought back to my dream of becoming a writer. As I read through them, a thought crossed over my mind. Getting laid off wasn’t a punishment, it was a blessing. I earned it.

I earned today. I earned the right to live my life the way that I wanted it, not on someone else’s terms. My schedule was mine, my day was mine. I can do what I wanted, when I wanted. Yes, I had worries and responsibilities. But that voice deep inside me told me that it was all going to be okay. I realized I was smiling.

I picked up my pen and scratched out the heading. Underneath the date, I wrote “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

I realized that I had nothing to do today except today. And the day was mine.