A good friend of mine has worked tenures at several great tech companies. Their professional success was never surprising to me; I’d known them for years, and I knew any team would be lucky to have them.

Still, when tech companies started laying people off—by the tens of thousands—they got caught in two of them, one right after the other. When we had dinner, they wondered out loud to me if they were the problem.

I reminded them that there was plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. Foresight is foggy, sometimes an illusion; only hindsight is clear. 

Sometimes, people who embody high agency need a gentle reminder that not everything is up to them. 

If you’re one of them, remember this: what happened to you might not have entirely been in your control, and it wasn’t your fault. You can always reflect on it, and decide what to do next.

P.S., My friend Jason wrote a really useful guide for what to do after getting laid off (more here).