When I began socializing again after the initial shock had worn out, I realized I was reaching out to people who wouldn’t judge – my kids, my wife, my parents, my buddies – specifically my engineering buddies.

I didn’t go back to my engineering college friends for career advice. I went back because I wanted to feel… normal. Not “LinkedIn normal.” Not “conference-panel normal.” Just regular, mid-40s, slightly confused, mildly tired, still-figuring-it-out normal.

There is something deeply comforting about being around people who don’t panic when you say, “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing next.”

Instead, they respond with, “Same, yaar.” That sentence alone lowers your blood pressure by 20%.

My engineering friends didn’t need me to be impressive. They needed me to be present. They teased me. Relentlessly. They appreciated my strengths. Casually. They called out my nonsense. Immediately. And best of all—I didn’t feel the urge to defend myself.

No narrative management. No explaining the layoff “context.” No pretending this was all part of a master plan. Just jokes, curiosity, and the shared understanding that life doesn’t magically stabilize after 40—it just gives you better excuses to hide the chaos.

What I was really craving wasn’t validation. It was permission to play. Somewhere along the way, play got rebranded as irresponsibility.

As a kid, my mom’s most frequent sentence was: “Stop playing and focus on your studies.”

Which was fair—I was always playing.

Street cricket until the lights came on. Hours building a cardboard snooker table that barely worked. Painting my canvas shoes because I wanted them to look “cooler” than store-bought ones.

I could lose entire afternoons building things that had no purpose other than curiosity.

Then adulthood arrived and said: “Nice hobbies. Now monetize your existence.”

Slowly, play got replaced with performance.

Work became about optics. Meetings became about alignment. Output became something you presented, not something you touched.

By the time I hit my forties, I had convinced myself that all jobs were the same—and that boredom was just maturity wearing a sensible shirt. But after the layoff, something unexpected happened.

When I started talking, experimenting and tinkering with a couple of my engineering friends again, I wasn’t “working.”

I was tinkering. We weren’t discussing titles or exit paths. We were poking at ideas. Breaking things. Laughing when something didn’t work.

No deadlines. No dashboards. No one pretending to be busy.

It felt suspiciously like… fun. That’s when it clicked: I hadn’t lost motivation. I had lost play.

Play is not the absence of seriousness. It’s the absence of fear. When you play, you’re not optimizing for judgment. You’re exploring. And exploration is how adults quietly rebuild themselves without announcing it to the world.

Being around friends who knew me before ambition fully colonized my personality reminded me of something important:

I was a builder before I was a manager. I liked creating things that didn’t need approval. Things that worked—or didn’t—and that was okay.

With them, I could say,

“This might be stupid,”

and instead of silence, I’d hear,

“Let’s try it anyway.”

That’s a rare gift in midlife.

Most environments punish experimentation unless it’s dressed up as “strategy.” But play doesn’t need a slide deck. Play needs curiosity and psychological safety.

And here’s the underrated part: being teased is a form of love. Only people who are secure with you will mock you without malice. Only people who know your core won’t mistake your confusion for weakness.

Those conversations grounded me.

They reminded me that everyone is winging it—just at different levels of polish.

Some hide behind titles.

Some hide behind certainty.

Some, thankfully, don’t hide at all.

That’s when I realized this next phase of life didn’t need a grand reinvention. It needed a return.

To play. To craft. To building things that satisfy the soul before they satisfy a market.

___

I didn’t go back to my engineering friends to go backwards.

I went back to remember who I was before everything became so serious.

Next, I’ll write about what happens when play becomes routine—how mornings start to feel different, why “jobless” oddly brings energy back, and how clarity sneaks in without making a big announcement.

Turns out, it usually shows up around 8 AM.