There is a strange assumption embedded deep inside modern life.
We spend enormous amounts of time planning how to get somewhere.
We plan careers.
We plan marriages.
We plan retirements.
We plan vacations.
We plan investments.
We plan educational paths.
We plan five-year goals.
Ten-year goals.
Twenty-year visions.
We create spreadsheets for futures that haven't happened yet.
We buy planners.
We attend seminars.
We hire coaches.
We watch motivational videos from people standing in front of rented Lamborghinis.
Human beings are obsessed with entrances.
The beginning of things.
The ascent.
The climb.
The dream.
The breakthrough.
The launch.
But almost nobody plans the exit.
And that's fascinating.
Because eventually everything becomes an exit.
Everything.
The job.
The relationship.
The friendship.
The company.
The house.
The dream.
The body.
Even the life itself.
Especially the life itself.
Yet somehow we spend decades acting as if exits are unexpected software glitches rather than the most predictable feature of existence.
It's like boarding an airplane and being shocked that it eventually lands.
"What do you mean we're descending?"
Sir, that was literally the entire arrangement.
The Cult of Arrival
I think one of the greatest scams ever sold to humanity is the idea of arrival.
The belief that there is some magical destination where everything finally makes sense.
A place where uncertainty evaporates.
A place where satisfaction becomes permanent.
A place where happiness signs a long-term lease agreement.
We're taught this story from childhood.
Graduate.
Get the job.
Get the promotion.
Buy the house.
Find the partner.
Build the family.
Accumulate enough money.
Then somehow...
arrive.
Nobody can explain where "there" actually is.
It's always one milestone further away.
One achievement beyond reach.
One accomplishment past the horizon.
Life becomes an endless series of arrivals that somehow never feel like arriving.
And because we're so focused on reaching the next destination, we rarely consider how we'll leave the current one.
The exit becomes somebody else's problem.
Future Me can deal with it.
Future Me is apparently a highly competent wizard who handles all unpleasant realities.
Unfortunately, Future Me usually turns out to be Present Me wearing slightly older skin.
The Retirement Fantasy
Nothing illustrates this better than retirement.
People spend forty years planning retirement.
Forty years.
Think about that.
Forty years imagining the moment they finally stop working.
The brochures are incredible.
Everyone is smiling.
Everyone is on a beach.
Everyone appears suspiciously hydrated.
The retirement industry has convinced millions of people that their final chapter will resemble a luxury travel advertisement.
Then retirement arrives.
And many people discover something unexpected.
They planned the finances.
They didn't plan the exit.
They knew how to stop working.
They didn't know how to stop being the person who worked.
Those are very different things.
One is arithmetic.
The other is identity.
And identity is much harder to budget for.
Nobody talks about that part.
Nobody shows commercials featuring retirees staring at the ceiling wondering who they are without the career they've been describing themselves as for thirty years.
That's not great marketing.
The Relationship Exit
Relationships provide another masterclass in exit denial.
People spend months planning weddings.
Sometimes years.
Venues.
Flowers.
Photography.
Music.
Cake.
Invitations.
Centerpieces.
Color schemes.
Human beings will dedicate hundreds of hours to selecting napkins.
Napkins.
Tiny cloth squares designed specifically to catch food debris.
Meanwhile, almost nobody discusses what happens if the relationship eventually ends.
Not because they're pessimistic.
Because they're superstitious.
We treat conversations about endings like they're curses.
As if acknowledging possibility somehow creates inevitability.
But reality doesn't care about our superstition.
Reality continues operating regardless.
The truth is that many relationships end.
Not all.
Not most.
But enough.
And when they do, people often discover they've spent years planning the entrance and zero minutes planning the exit.
The emotional equivalent of building a house without doors.
Looks great until you need to leave.
Companies Die Too
Businesses suffer from the same delusion.
Every startup pitch deck contains growth projections.
Expansion plans.
Market opportunities.
Revenue targets.
Nobody walks into a venture capital meeting and says:
"Our five-year strategy includes a graceful collapse."
Investors tend to dislike that slide.
Yet companies die constantly.
Some fail dramatically.
Others slowly fade.
Some are disrupted.
Some become irrelevant.
Some simply run out of time.
The corporate graveyard is enormous.
It's filled with organizations that assumed success would continue indefinitely.
History suggests otherwise.
History is ruthless about otherwise.
Every giant eventually discovers gravity.
The only uncertainty is timing.
My Favorite Human Delusion
One of my favorite human delusions is permanence.
Not because it's rare.
Because it's universal.
We all do it.
We buy furniture as if we'll live in the same house forever.
We make career decisions as if industries never change.
We form opinions as if new information won't arrive.
We build routines as if circumstances won't evolve.
We're constantly negotiating long-term contracts with a future that never signed anything.
The future is incredibly unreliable.
It never keeps appointments.
It never confirms reservations.
It rarely follows instructions.
Yet we continue trusting it with astonishing confidence.
I admire the optimism.
I question the strategy.
The Technology Version
Technology people are especially vulnerable to this.
Every generation of innovation creates a fresh batch of prophets.
They declare permanent winners.
Permanent losers.
Permanent transformations.
Permanent dominance.
Then reality shows up carrying a baseball bat.
Remember when social media would save democracy?
That was fun.
Remember when cryptocurrencies would replace all money?
Good times.
Remember when the metaverse would become our primary reality?
How's that going?
Remember when every office worker would be permanently remote?
Remember when every office worker would permanently return?
Turns out reality prefers complexity.
Technology evolves.
Markets evolve.
Human behavior evolves.
Everything exits eventually.
Even narratives.
Especially narratives.
The Exit We Never Mention
Let's address the giant elephant sitting quietly in the room.
Death.
The ultimate exit.
The one exit guaranteed to achieve a one-hundred-percent participation rate.
Humanity spends an astonishing amount of energy pretending this isn't happening.
We discuss diets.
Exercise.
Longevity.
Supplements.
Biohacking.
Cryotherapy.
Cold plunges.
Red-light therapy.
Blue-light therapy.
Green smoothies.
Purple powders.
Apparently every color has joined the battle against mortality.
And don't get me wrong.
Taking care of yourself matters.
Health matters.
Longevity matters.
But eventually every anti-aging strategy encounters the same problem.
The universe remains undefeated.
Nobody has beaten it yet.
The scoreboard is brutally consistent.
And despite knowing this, we spend surprisingly little time preparing for the reality itself.
Not financially.
Not legally.
Psychologically.
Existentially.
Emotionally.
The greatest certainty in human existence remains the least discussed.
That's remarkable.
And slightly insane.
The Problem With Endless Optimization
Modern culture worships optimization.
Everything must improve.
Everything must scale.
Everything must grow.
Everything must accelerate.
The language of optimization has infected every corner of life.
Optimize your productivity.
Optimize your sleep.
Optimize your nutrition.
Optimize your relationships.
Optimize your mindset.
Optimize your morning routine.
Soon we'll be optimizing how efficiently we optimize.
The problem is that optimization assumes continuation.
It assumes more road ahead.
More time.
More opportunities.
More chapters.
But exits change the equation.
An exit forces different questions.
Not:
"How do I maximize this?"
But:
"How do I finish this?"
Those are profoundly different challenges.
One focuses on growth.
The other focuses on meaning.
Growth is measurable.
Meaning is slippery.
That's why we prefer growth.
Spreadsheets are easier than philosophy.
The Strange Beauty of Endings
Here's where my view becomes unpopular.
I think endings give things value.
Not despite their existence.
Because of it.
Imagine a song that never ended.
A movie without a final scene.
A book with no last page.
A conversation that continued forever.
A sunset that never disappeared.
A season that never changed.
Eventually the experience would become unbearable.
Meaning often emerges from limits.
Scarcity creates significance.
The finite nature of things gives them weight.
The fact that moments end is precisely what makes them matter.
If everything lasted forever, nothing would feel precious.
Infinity is surprisingly good at destroying urgency.
Mortality creates urgency.
Impermanence creates urgency.
Endings create urgency.
And urgency creates meaning.
It's an uncomfortable truth.
But many important truths are uncomfortable.
That's why they're important.
Why Nobody Plans the Exit
I think I've finally figured out why people avoid exit planning.
It's not ignorance.
It's not stupidity.
It's not denial.
At least not entirely.
It's identity.
Planning an exit requires acknowledging change.
Acknowledging change requires admitting impermanence.
Admitting impermanence threatens identity.
And identity fights back.
Ferociously.
We don't just fear losing jobs.
We fear losing versions of ourselves.
We don't just fear losing relationships.
We fear losing stories about ourselves.
We don't just fear endings.
We fear becoming strangers to our own narratives.
That's what makes exits painful.
The logistics are usually manageable.
The identity disruption is harder.
Much harder.
The Best Exit Strategy
After years of watching people navigate endings badly—including myself—I think the best exit strategy is surprisingly simple.
Hold things lightly.
Not carelessly.
Not indifferently.
Lightly.
Love deeply.
Work hard.
Commit fully.
Build passionately.
Dream ambitiously.
But remember that everything you're holding is temporary.
Every role.
Every title.
Every possession.
Every certainty.
Every victory.
Every defeat.
Every chapter.
Temporary.
The moment you forget this, life gains leverage over you.
The moment you remember it, something changes.
You stop demanding permanence from temporary things.
You stop expecting guarantees from uncertain systems.
You stop treating chapters like entire books.
You become more present.
More appreciative.
More resilient.
Ironically, accepting endings often improves the experience itself.
The Exit Nobody Plans For
The exit nobody plans for isn't retirement.
It isn't divorce.
It isn't career change.
It isn't death.
Not really.
The exit nobody plans for is the moment they realize the story they were telling themselves no longer works.
That's the hardest exit of all.
The exit from an identity.
The exit from an illusion.
The exit from an outdated version of yourself.
The exit from certainty.
Because those exits can't be outsourced.
You can't hire a consultant.
You can't download an app.
You can't attend a weekend seminar.
You have to walk through them yourself.
Alone.
And that's terrifying.
But it's also where growth actually happens.
Not at the entrance.
Not during the climb.
Not at the mythical arrival point.
At the exit.
Because every meaningful transformation begins when something ends.
That's the part nobody puts on motivational posters.
It's harder to sell.
Less glamorous.
More honest.
The truth is that life isn't a straight line toward arrival.
It's a series of entrances and exits.
Doors opening.
Doors closing.
Identities forming.
Identities dissolving.
Stories beginning.
Stories ending.
And perhaps wisdom isn't learning how to avoid exits.
Perhaps wisdom is learning how to leave well.
Because eventually every chapter closes.
Every role changes.
Every certainty fades.
Every road bends.
Every story reaches its final page.
The exit is coming.
Not today, perhaps.
Not tomorrow.
But eventually.
The remarkable thing isn't that the exit exists.
The remarkable thing is that knowing this, we still choose to love, build, dream, create, risk, and hope anyway.
That may be humanity's greatest achievement.
Not that we survive forever.
But that we keep moving forward despite knowing we won't.
And if that isn't both absurd and beautiful, I don't know what is.