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A rickety wooden walkway leads to this viewpoint — and that's not an accident

September 15, 2026

A rickety wooden walkway leads to this viewpoint — and that's not an accident

A narrow wooden walkway leads to this viewpoint, slung between two points at a decent height, and it noticeably sways with every step. At first it's unpleasant — the instinct is to grip the railing and walk slowly, testing every board. But locals explained: the walkway was built deliberately flimsy and moving, so people wouldn't linger up there too long — take a photo, stand for a couple of minutes, and make room for the next person. The instability here isn't an accident and it isn't a construction flaw. It's part of the design.

I stood on that walkway, felt it swaying under my feet, and thought about how often we expect the exact opposite from important decisions at work and in our careers — full stability before taking the step. We want to wait for the moment when everything becomes perfectly clear: this project will definitely take off, this move will definitely turn out right, walking away from this old position definitely won't be a mistake. And as long as that clarity doesn't come, a person stands still, gripping the railing, for years.

But here's the thing: before a genuinely significant career decision, full stability almost never exists. Not because the decision is bad, but because any significant decision, by definition, contains uncertainty — otherwise it wouldn't be significant, it would be obvious. Waiting for the wobble to fully stop means waiting forever, because the very nature of big decisions is that solid ground underfoot simply isn't part of the design.

I've seen this pattern in a lot of people I've talked to about work and changing direction. Someone stays in a position for years that stopped bringing satisfaction a long time ago, precisely because they're waiting for a hundred percent certainty before leaving. Someone doesn't dare pitch their idea to management because they want to eliminate every possible objection first — and you can always think of one more. The stability they're looking for structurally doesn't exist until after the decision has already been made and lived with, at least a little.

Someone once told me how they tried to "wait for certainty" for almost two years before a big professional decision. Certainty never came — instead came the feeling that life was passing by while they stood waiting for a signal that didn't exist. They finally took the step at a point when they had just as many doubts as at the start. They simply, at some point, got more tired of waiting than afraid of being wrong.

The wobble in the walkway isn't a signal to turn back. It's the normal state of a bridge between where you're standing and where you're going. The question isn't how to get rid of the wobble before a big work decision. The question is whether you're ready to take the step while the walkway is still swaying under your feet — because it will never become solid, not until after you've already crossed to the other side.

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