Today marks my last day at Amazon Web Services. The last 5 years have flown by. Typically, when I share the news with my colleagues or friends or family, their response is almost always “Where are you heading next?”.

Having a job lined up is the logical, rational and responsible thing to do before making a career transition. A plan is not only the safe thing to do, but probably even the right thing to do, especially if you have a family you need to financially support. And up until recently, I started really doubting myself, questioning my decision to leave a career behind without a bullet-proof plan.

But then, I start to reflect on the last 10 years and all of the leaps of faith I took. In retrospect, many of those past decisions made no sense whatsoever.

At least not at that time.

Seven years ago, I left my position as a director of technology at Fox and with nothing lined up, reduced my belongings to a single suit case, moving to London for a girl I had only briefly met for 2 hours while volunteering at an orphanage in Vietnam. When I booked my flight from Los Angeles to London, almost everyone was like, “Matt — you just met her. This makes no sense.”

They were right. It made no sense.

Around the same time, another leap of faith: confessing to my family and friends that I was living a double life and subsequently checking myself into rehab and therapy. Many could not fathom why I was asking for help since issues, especially around addiction, was something our family didn’t talk about. Shame and guilt was something we kept ourselves, something one battles alone, in isolation.

Again, my decision made no sense.

But now, looking back, those decisions were a no brainer. That relationship I took a shot on blossomed into a beautiful marriage. And attending therapy every week for the past 5 years quite literally saved my life from imploding into total chaos. These decisions , making no sense at the time, were made out of pure instinct.

But somehow, they make total sense now.

Because it’s always easy to connect the dots looking backwards — never forwards.

So here I am, right now, my instinct nudging me to take yet another leap of faith. It’s as if I have this magic crystal ball, showing me loud and clear what my path is: a reimagined life centered around family.

How is this all going to pan out?

No clue.

But it’ll probably all make sense 5 years from now.