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In Purgatory

I had deeply emotional response to this essay even though I never played tennis in my life and have only a passing interest in the sport. The purgatory of having potential but never reaching it is extremely relatable. Conor Niland speaks eloquently to what that feels like for a professional tennis player who can't quite float up to the top hundred. It seems ludicrously unfair that players with the caliber to rank in the top thousand in the world would be treated with as much regard as someone who plays "great" tennis at their small-town tennis club tournament. 

There is a universe that separates the ability and accomplishments of the two but they are lumped in the same category of unremarkable tennis players. I am definitely one of those that never achieved my potential academically or professionally for any number of reasons. Had it not been for the things in my personal life I was so very fortunate to receive, I would feel a lot like Niland did. 

A lot of futile toiling in the ranks with nothing to show for it. In business, a person has to move to a certain level at a certain clip to be able to execute on their ideas, drive organizations to fulfill their vision, earn their stripes to do bigger and better things. If that position is not attained in time, it almost does not matter if it is ever is. Most likely it will not come to pass and if it does - like by some miracle a tennis-pro ranked 889 by some miraculous happenstance shoots up to 89, chances are they will not last there long enough for it to matter at all.

 All the extraordinary effort to get there would be for nothing. I came to that assessment about my own professional prospects about two decades ago and decided I should accept that I will remain approximately where I was then - I could improve some aspects of it which I did but in balance nothing has changed for in at least twenty years. That fundamental stasis has to be dressed up as story of career progression to remain professionally viable. I believe this is exactly why there is such a strong demand for professional resume writing services - way too many people out there end up like me and need a helping hand to remain afloat. 

I wasn’t schlepping my way through the lower ranks of the professional tour for the money or the prestige, both of which were in short supply. I, like everyone else, was there to remove myself from the clutches of the lower tiers. The Futures tour sometimes felt like a circle of hell, but in practical terms it’s better understood as purgatory: a liminal space that exists only to be got out of as quickly as possible.

In a sense I made peace with living in the lower tiers so that purgatory became more tolerable. It also made me gain a stronger, keener appreciation of all things in my life beyond work.

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