What If This Isn’t the End?
Twelve days after losing everything, I wrote a journal entry that turned out to be my beginning.
I wrote this twelve days after I lost the job that almost broke me.
Four straight years of being the top performer in my role. Two straight years of carrying a broken system on my back while an incompetent manager undermined me, gaslit me, and made jokes countless times about alcohol after I told him I was in recovery COUNTLESS TIMES.
Every time I asked for clarity, I got confusion. Every time I stood up for myself, I got silence or spin. I didn’t get support — I got surveilled. And the more I succeeded, the more it felt like they wanted to erase me.
I finally went to HR to request a new manager and they fired me.
I didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore.
Not because I got fired. They also put something on my licenses that was complete bullshit that I had to wait over a year to get resolved. It prevented me from gaining employment in the financial industry which is all I’d known for over 10 years.
It’s funny. What they claimed I did “wrong”… I WAS TRAINED TO DO AND DID FOR 4 YEARS STRAIGHT UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF MULTIPLE MANAGERS. These clowns didn’t want to take any accountability so they not only fired me. They tried to destroy me and get me to go away quietly.
They even offered me a 30k severance package while letting me go with an agreement not to sue them.
I said fuck you and turned that offer down.
Its funny looking back now, but at the time I was in fight or flight mode every day worried about my future. I questioned if my life was over because so much of my identity was wrapped up in being a financial advisor.
My career up to that point was the only thing I felt that could keep me safe.
I had no plan. No title. Just wreckage.
And yet — I wrote this.
Not to inspire anyone. Just to survive myself.
This was the first time I put words to the voice they couldn’t kill.
What if?
Written by Cody Taymore — April 13, 2023
What if it's not the end?
What if this is the beginning?
What if every decision you made was the right one?
Even the decisions you label as mistakes.
What if safety has always just been an illusion?
An illusion we cling to because we are so scared to not be in control?
What if the illusion of safety is costing us living a life we know would make us more fulfilled?
What if the biggest risk is looking back & regretting the things we dreamt of doing?
The things we kept putting off in exchange for being practical & “realistic.”
What if we listened?
What if we stopped suppressing that voice?
Those feelings?
Those dreams.
What if the cost of regret is much more than we could imagine?
What if no amount of money, things, or accomplishments could pay the bill?
What if the universe is trying to point you in a direction that you keep resisting out of fear?
What if you could let that fear go?
What if you stopped comparing yourself to people?
What if you truly loved & accepted yourself?
What if you're mistaking fear for excitement because you can't tell the difference anymore?
What if you stopped blaming yourself?
What if you stripped away all the excuses?
All the reasons you tell yourself you can't.
What if you're an ocean?
What if you're not just a drop in the bucket?
What if you stopped trying to prevent yourself from overflowing?
What if you stopped lying?
What if you stopped second guessing yourself?
What if you reinvented yourself?
What if you reintroduced yourself?
What if it's never been about the things they try to get you to focus on?
What if being alive is the greatest gift you have been given?
What if you vowed to not waste it living what others expected of you?
What if you stopped being so mean to yourself?
What if you could actually accept that it's not your fault?
What if you started? Not tomorrow. Now.
What if you began living right now?
What if you did that?
What if—
—Cody Taymore
Kill The Silence
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Cody, it's as if a courageous, powerful, humble, wise part of you had been in hiding for many, many years, and a traumatic event at the hands of ignorant (one could argue EVIL) people allowed these qualities to almost literally erupt in a geyser of insightful questions, on April 13, 2023. It's like a rebirth that had been a long time coming.
Absolutely freakin' brilliant. Thank you for sharing all this.
You’ve taken the myth of safety and set it aflame with kindness. That’s rare. Most people rip illusions with bitterness. You peeled this one back like a veil, soft and devastating.
What if the real danger was never risk, but obedience? What if safety was just the dull hallway where ambition and brilliance go to die under fluorescent lights and entitlement?
You want to talk about regret? Let’s talk about every office corridor I walked down where my intelligence was treated as a threat, and my body as open invitation. Every man who mistook my insight for foreplay. Every woman who learned to smile while sharpening her knives because the hierarchy only makes room for one of us at a time.
What if the real question is: what would we be if we stopped dimming ourselves for comfort, for acceptance, for survival?
What if fear didn’t make our choices, power did?
Thank you 😊