Women and SHOES-AH!

The good thing is that absolutely nobody in the world reads this blog, otherwise this opinion would probably get me tarred and feathered.

I make no secrets about my business struggles. I have to bust my ass to make… “money.” It’s gotten harder. There are plenty of reasons behind this. This post isn’t about pinning the blame on AI or technology or any one particular thing.

But something is definitely going on.

I’m very talented. I’m not saying that to be conceited, but I’ve been told by many people (who aren’t my wife and/or family) that I’ve got a skill. Add to that 30+ years of industry experience, being hired and contracted by numerous companies, and the small fact that I supported my wife and five children for twenty years while being fully self-employed.

I know what I’m doing.

I’m good. Better than a lot.

And I’ve got experience that is much more valuable than a degree (which I also have, but whatever.)

Things SHOULD be getting easier for me.

Working less. Making more. That’s the promise, right? Get good at something, build a reputation, put in the years and eventually the work starts coming to you.

NOPE.

It’s getting harder.

Not my fault. Not AI’s fault. Not even really the market’s fault in the traditional sense.

It’s the fault of this weird cultural moment we’re living in where everything is upside down and nobody quite knows what the rules are anymore.

Experience used to matter.

Reputation used to matter.

Skill used to matter.

Now? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. A lot of times it feels like the deciding factor has nothing to do with the actual work at all.

We’ve created this environment where everyone is trying to correct for some past injustice, and in doing so we’ve swung wildly in every possible direction. Companies are terrified of making the wrong decision, so they make decisions based on optics, narratives, vibes, whatever the current cultural weather happens to be.

And the result is that the whole thing feels random.

Put two people with equal skill and ability into a bidding situation and who wins the job? Who knows. Maybe the better designer. Maybe the better storyteller. Maybe the person who happens to check the right cultural box that week.

None of this is equality.

Equality would mean judging the work.

Equality would mean the best person for the job gets the job.

Instead we’ve built this strange system where everyone is constantly adjusting the scales trying to fix something that happened fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, or five minutes ago.

And the thing about constantly adjusting the scales is that eventually the scales stop meaning anything at all.

Now look, maybe that’s the price of progress. Maybe society has to wobble around for a while before it finds its balance again. History tends to move in cycles. One generation overcorrects for the sins of the previous one and the next generation overcorrects again.

Back and forth.

Round and round.

But from where I’m sitting, trying to run a business and feed a family, it’s a strange thing to watch the world decide that decades of experience suddenly don’t carry the weight they used to.

And maybe the lesson here is that the old promises were never real to begin with.

Work hard.

Get good.

Build experience.

And eventually things get easier.

Turns out that’s not necessarily how the world works.

Sometimes you get older.

Sometimes you get better.

And sometimes the world just decides it wants something else.

So you keep working.

You keep creating.

You keep doing the thing you know how to do.

Because at the end of the day that’s really the only part you can control.

Now… what IS up with women and shoes