I Thought Something Was Wrong With Me

For years I felt it. A low hum of apathy that I couldn't quite explain.

I was working, showing up, doing my best. But something felt off, like I was pushing a boulder uphill for no particular reason, on someone else's mountain. I'd watch opportunities get missed, potential go unrealized, things that could have been so much better just... not being better. And I couldn't fix it. Too many things were beyond my control.

I started wondering if I was depressed, if I was just difficult, burnt out from life, the residual effects of the pandemic. If this was simply what working felt like for most people and I needed to get over it.

I lost my spark for years.

A friend started a Shopify site with products, a blog, an aesthetic. He made it look easy and meaningful, so I tried it. I spent weeks building something out. Black everything, minimalist finds. A curated lifestyle brand called MTTE BLLK.

And then I did nothing with it because it had no soul. It wasn't the thing I was looking for, I just didn't know what that was yet.

Then in October 2025 I got laid off, and I scoured LinkedIn and Indeed, I applied for over 80 jobs. Every interview I sat through made me feel worse, not better. Every role felt like another boulder, another hill, another version of the same feeling I'd been trying to shake for years.

So I stopped.

I looked at what people kept calling me in for. What I'd been doing quietly inside every company I'd worked for. The systems I'd built that weren't my job to build, the gaps I couldn't stop filling, the referrals that kept finding me.

And I thought, what if that's it?

MTTE BLLK stopped being a lifestyle site and became what it was always supposed to be, a strategy and consulting agency built around the belief that businesses deserve to be built with intention. Not chaos, not winging it - intention.

I won't pretend I had it all figured out the moment I made the decision, but for the first time in years I'm not pushing someone else's boulder up a mountain I don’t want to be on.

And my spark? It's coming back. Quietly, steadily, the same way matte black holds everything. Without performing it, without announcing it.

Just here, finally.

Intention over everything.