Now Approaching: A Hard Left
(It didn't come out of nowhere)
“Hard lefts” have been a hot topic for my friends and me over the last few years (hello to our Saturn Returns, we see you).
They’re the kind of life-altering shifts that feel sudden, unplanned, and steer us away from what we thought was the path.
But when we look back on those moments (we’ve all had them), we realize they didn’t come out of nowhere. They were more likely an accumulation of subtle nudges. Feelings we couldn’t quite name. Tense sensations in the body. Intuitive pings that something was “off” even when it looked “right” on paper.
Ignoring those nudges doesn’t make them go away. We can keep choosing what feels safe, expected, logical, but the nudges just get louder.
Until eventually… we are confronted with a hard left.
I think back to summer 2019, when I was interning at an investment bank in New York City.
A few days before my final presentation, I found myself in the ER at Lenox Hill, hooked up to a morphine drip with agonizing abdominal pain. I was discharged without answers and shook it off quickly.
At that point, everything else in my life felt like it was working. I was performing well, having fun, securing my future.
It seemed like I was on the right path. So I stayed the course.
Even as the ER visits continued. Even as my symptoms got louder.
Eventually, I thought, fine! I’m listening. I’d find the best doctors, make my health a priority.
But I wasn’t really listening. I was just trying to fix it so I could keep going the way I was before, stay on the course I had already decided was the right one.
At some point, I stopped asking what was getting in the way and started wondering what the path even was.
Had I chosen it? Or was it something I’d absorbed as a sure route to success, worthiness, safety?
How long was I willing to ignore myself to maintain it?
Looking back, I wonder why I needed so many nudges, so many whispers, and eventually so many hard lefts before I paused and really listened.
But I think we all do this.
We ignore the signs. Especially when they threaten to move us off the path that feels familiar, safe, logical. We push through what our body is trying to communicate, telling ourselves we’ll deal with it later.
We know our body whispers before it screams. But when those whispers point toward change, we pretend we didn’t hear them.
Eventually, life makes it harder to ignore.
A hard left isn’t random. It’s what happens when we’ve been overriding ourselves for a long time.
Some of my hard lefts looked like taking a medical leave, moving back home with my parents, leaving my job. My “path” was pulled out from under me.
At first, I thought the next step was finding a new one. Because I believed there was a right path. I just needed to find it.
The right career, the right location, the right circumstances. Then it would all click into place.
Over time, that idea started to fall apart.
The path I thought I needed to stay on was never the point.
What actually mattered lived underneath it all:
The ability to notice when something felt off, pause just long enough to hear it, and respond, little by little.
And do that over and over again.
Sometimes I think about what a past version of myself would see if she looked at my life now.
Back in 2019, I had such a clear idea of what my life was supposed to look like. I was finishing my degree early, carving out time to travel, and launching into a job that felt like a direct line to success.
And right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba during my partner’s hockey season, writing about my life.
My first question would probably be… where the f is Winnipeg?
So much of my life now exists outside anything I could have planned for.
Whatever I thought “the right path” was? She’s gone.
In a way, straying from it has been one of my greatest gifts. Without the ability to rely on external conditions that tell me who I’m supposed to be and where I’m supposed to go, I’m left with: myself.
And left with myself, I’ve learned to notice, to listen, and to respond to what feels true, moment to moment.
It was never about fixing all my symptoms, getting back on “the path”, or even finding the “right path” at all.
In learning to meet myself where I am, listen to what comes up, and honor what I need, I’ve cultivated an internal safety more solid than any external path could offer me.
We all experience the subtle nudges, the louder pushes, and eventually, the hard lefts.
We can’t always avoid them, but maybe we can soften them by noticing what builds up before.
Pause now and start to notice: the subtle pulls, the unsettling feelings, the tension in your chest.
Maybe that’s all you do for now. Just notice.
There is a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen: people get hurt or die;
And you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.
— William Stafford, The Way It Is