I came across this quote on the Fast Company blog today,

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

and I felt that it was a fitting summary of how I continue to feel about my life in the workforce. A few months after graduating I realized that I was coming home most days feeling frustrated. I knew that I wasn’t frustrated with my job so I gave it some thought. The explanation was a simple one: I was working at my margins.

I was tackling new problems every single day and having to learn new techniques to solve them. My frustration was that I was consistently right on my margin, right on the edge of not being able to keep up, yet I wasn’t aware of this.

After this realization, frustration turned to excitement. What an incredible thing. To always be a student. To always be learning. To always be pushing personal limits. It’s now a goal of mine to spend as much of my career as possible working at my margin.

This is another reason I’m doing this – to continue to push myself.

To continue to work at my margin.