When Helping Others Saved Me

At some point during my unexpected career pivot, I realized I was spending an impressive amount of time thinking about… myself.

And spoiler alert: It wasn't helping.

Apparently, the world does not revolve around us… even when we're losing our jobs and everything feels unfair, dramatic, and mildly apocalyptic.

I won't lie: when things started unraveling for thousands of us in the diplomacy and international development worlds earlier this year, I did not handle it with the serene wisdom I am intent on projecting right now. I spiraled, obsessed, doom-scrolled. I focused entirely on the problem of… well, me.

But here's the plot twist... very quickly (thanks to my brilliant, no-nonsense wife and her particular brand of #realtalk) I pivoted from panic to a plan. An unexpected plan, sure, but a plan nonetheless. We weren't going to chase jobs; we were going to move to Portugal and figure it out, on our own terms.

And that decision changed everything.

Even before the visa paperwork was done, the clarity kicked in. The concern softened. The rage-applying stopped. And, surprisingly enough, I shifted from obsessing over my own situation to helping other people with theirs.

I checked in on colleagues. Shared job leads. Reviewed résumés over coffee. Ran a few LinkedIn workshops... showing people how the platform actually works, how to update profiles, how to use it to find jobs without spiraling. At least my version of understanding these things.

I was happy to share what I knew, but what I was really happy about was doing something, being positive.

At one point, a colleague even asked, "Wait… are you independently wealthy or something?" (Spoiler: absolutely not. But I appreciate the vibe.)

It wasn't a trust fund that saved me; it was something simpler: once I stopped catastrophizing my situation, I finally had the bandwidth to be useful. To myself, but more importantly to others.

Here's the part I didn't exactly expect: helping others was calming, even smack in the middle of all the uncertainty.

It steadied me when my own world was still wobbling. It quieted the noise. It turned fear into forward motion. Even the Portugal plan itself—D7 visa applications, finding a place to live, planning an epic road trip, all of it—felt more doable with that outward focus.

Helping people didn't magically solve pending unemployment. It didn't gift me certainty or clarity about the future. But choosing to focus on others instead of myself (completely) just felt right. For the time and place.

Turns out that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is stop thinking about yourself.