Cartograph — Main-page example prompts

Source: cartograph/src/lib/starterExamples.ts (STARTER_EXAMPLES) These are the rotating examples shown under the placeholder on the empty main page (one every 10s, EMPTY / EmptyStateTeaching). Not the placeholder itself. Reproduced verbatim, including the original curly apostrophes and quotes. 12 in total.

1. I’ve been offered a bigger role at a smaller company: more responsibility, slightly less money. What worries me is losing the stability we just got: we bought the flat last year and my partner is mid-retraining. I can’t tell if the timing is wrong or if I’m just scared.

2. We keep talking about leaving the city: cheaper, calmer, closer to nature. I work remotely; she’d have to start over. The kids are four and seven, and everyone says move before school locks you in. What holds me back is my parents. They’re fine now, but for how long?

3. I could sell the business now for enough to take five years off, or keep building toward something bigger. Revenue is flat but steady, and my cofounder wants out. I still love the work, but I’m tired in a way holidays don’t fix. And I don’t know what I’d do with the time.

4. We can finally afford to buy, but only just; it would empty our savings and pin us to this city for a decade. Renting feels like burning money, and prices keep climbing. My partner wants roots; I like knowing we could leave. Neither of us wants to decide from fear.

5. I got into the master’s program I applied to on a whim. Two years, real money, and stepping off a career track that’s finally moving. I’m 34, and it feels like the last exit for this. But I can’t tell if I want the degree or just a way out of my job.

6. Eight years in, and we’re more housemates than a couple. Nothing is wrong exactly: no fights, no betrayal, just a distance that keeps growing. Therapy is on the table; so is separating while we’re still kind to each other. I don’t know which one I’m avoiding.

7. We said we’d try for a second child ‘when things settle’, and they never do. I’m 37, the window is real, and my job is finally going somewhere. My partner is ready; I’m the one hesitating. I can’t tell if it’s bad timing or my honest answer.

8. I can take six unpaid months next year; the company allows it, and we have the buffer. I’d walk the coast, write, actually rest. What scares me is coming back invisible: my team is being reshuffled and my sponsor might be gone. Maybe the rest is worth exactly that risk.

9. Mum is 78 and managing, but the calls are getting harder. Moving her closer would mean selling her house, her whole world, and she’d never ask for it. My sister thinks we wait; I think waiting means deciding in a crisis. We can’t both be right.

10. Twelve years in law, and I’m good at a job I’ve stopped caring about. The product role would cut my salary almost in half, and I’d start over as a junior at 40. My kids watch what I do all day. I keep asking which lesson matters more: security or aliveness.

11. The kids have been asking for a dog for two years and I’ve run out of reasons. I travel one week a month, so the walking would land on my wife. We both grew up with dogs and want that for them. I just don’t want it to become one more thing she carries.

12. My parents are aging and every visit ends with the same quiet guilt. Moving back means a smaller job market and unwinding the life we built here. My partner says she’d follow me. But I remember how much of my twenties I spent trying to leave that town.