I Looked at My Old University Management Textbook and Felt Like a Ghost

Dear Delyara, I found my old university textbook on strategic market management tucked away in the bottom drawer of the guardroom filing cabinet—someone must have left it here years ago, or maybe it was an omen. I flipped through the pages, looking at the highlighted diagrams on brand equity and global corporate models that I used to study with such absolute certainty during my days in London. I remembered how sure I was that my degree would instantly grant me a seat at the table of an elite creative agency. Looking at those clean, optimistic charts while wearing a high-vis jacket felt like looking at a life that belongs to someone else entirely. I feel like a ghost haunting my own potential, trapped in a twelve-hour loop of checking padlocks while the career I was built for slips further out of reach.