On April 25^th 1962, the Cleveland Indians baseball player Harry Chiti was signed by the New York Mets.

The terms of the trade?

The two teams agreed for an undecided player to be sent back to Cleveland at a later date.

Now, I’m not a baseball buff so I don’t know how common this is.  It would be a bit like Man Utd signing Raheem Sterling from Chelsea tomorrow and agreeing to send another unknown player back to Chelsea in a few months’ time.

Sounds a bit loopy doesn’t it?

From what I can find on t’interwebs, this wasn’t unheard of for 1960s baseball.

But what was unheard of was this:

A few weeks later, the Cleveland Indians and the New York Mets agreed the player to be sent the other way.

That player?

Harry Chiti!

That’s right.  Harry was traded for himself and the Cleveland Indians, New York Mets and hapless Harry all ended up back at square one.

A curious little story.

And it reminded me of life in a number of ways.

Especially the parts of life where it feels like nothing is happening, progress is hard to find and despite all the conversations, analysis, time, energy, effort and expense, we end up back at square one. 

Just like Harry did.

These are usually the areas of life where we lack motivation, feel restless or frustrated, notice we’re procrastinating or simply feel stuck.

I’ve certainly had my fair share of moments like these.

In fact, it wasn’t specific parts of my life where I felt I couldn’t find my way.

I was stuck with life itself, even though parts of life like my career, my health and my finances were going fine.

What do I mean by that?

Well, having a good job with a decent salary but still feeling lost on the inside meant I never made much progress.  Feeling like I wasn’t living authentically caused a sense of stagnation.  And not knowing what mattered to me was a bit like running laps on a track – no matter how fast I ran, I always ended up back at the starting line.

But that was then and this is now.

I never “solved” these problems or figured out the answers.

But I didn’t need to. 

Once I understood what was causing them, they pretty much dropped away all by themselves.

Even when these patterns of thinking pop back up (I still have similar doubts from time to time – I’m not saying I don’t), they don’t consume me like they used to and they don’t stick around for that long.

Probably because I don’t take them all that seriously any more.

But enough about that for the time being.

If you’re stuck in your career, caught up in a cycle of overthinking, feel like every day is the same or you’re waiting for something to change but it never does, I can help.

I’ve been there, done that, got the postcard, bought the fridge magnet and collected countless souvenir T-shirts.

But I also found a way out.

A way I’m more than happy to share if you’re ready to uncover your own unique path forward.

If so, you can read more about it here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

That’s all for today.

 - Tom