To Anyone Thinking of Quitting Their Job:
This year obviously hasn’t been the best for everyone. First, there’s of course the whole global pandemic thing going on, which is kind of incessantly playing in the background. Political tensions are also running high, as the country undergoes another election and as issues of social justice are increasingly on a public stage. It’s enough to make someone think the world is imploding. And that’s not even mentioning any other problems people were otherwise going to have in 2020…
For a lot of my peers and me, we’d reached a sort of inflection point in our careers. We’re about five years out of graduating from college at this point, and a certain existential dread and vocational wanderlust has begun to creep into our heads, making us second guess the tracks we’re on and whether or not we need to make big changes in our work lives. Personally, I was dealing with an incredibly high degree of burnout. I had invested most of myself into my work, leaving only time for what was required to be very intentional, planned “me time.” My social life had to be penned into a calendar, otherwise it wouldn’t happen. All this was exacerbated, too, by the fact that my work at the time was not particularly fulfilling.
And so I thought to myself, “Is this just what working for a living is? Does everyone feel like this, and I’m just the latest one to the party?” I did some classic tricks to try to convince myself that wasn’t the case- took a vacation continents away, tried new hobbies out, etc., but none of them worked. Despite my attempts to recharge myself, I remained burned out.
I began, then, to contemplate the one trick I hadn’t yet tried- quitting my job. I’d saved a bit of a nest egg up and did the obligatory calculus to see how long I’d be able to last with no income. That, in itself, was scary, but now add in the turbulent global geopolitical climate and pandemic that have made 2020 such a gem of a year. Quitting is normally an anxiety-inducing event, but quitting in 2020 seemed that much more nerve-wracking. Foolish even.
Which is why I did it, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
There are two main reasons I believe this decision has been such a great one for me, and I wanted to share with anyone who is maybe contemplating the same thing, wondering if they should take a plunge into unknown waters.
First, it’s given me brain real estate back. Like I said, I was incredibly burned out at my old job. There was endless work, so my occupation became sort of a permanent mental one. I was always thinking about things I needed to be doing. I would even find myself regularly dreaming about those things, too. But now, without those things on my mind, I feel like I have my brain back. I’m legitimately curious and explorative again. This past week, I read a book recreationally for the first time in years. I’ve been trying to learn a new language. It’s been an incredibly positive influence on my mental health, and during a time when everyone could probably use a boost in mental health.
Second, and related to the first, it’s allowed me an opportunity to re-orient my career life. Growing up, academically, I’d always focused on achievement. I wasn’t really concentrated on finding out what I liked in school; I was really only focused on excelling in everything. That mentality translated over to my vocational life, too. In all of my roles so far, I’ve never really concentrated on figuring out if I actually liked what I was doing; I only wanted to do well. So it’s not at all surprising that I burned out, with a headspace like that. Now though, I’ve begun to really try to focus on what interests me and orient my working life around that. I’ve realized that I get excited about deep quantitative analysis and pulling meaningful conclusions from data that aren’t always so obvious. And so I’ve enrolled in a Data Science course. I’m learning each day about new tools I can use to conduct such analysis, and it’s incredibly stimulating. I’m legitimately excited at the thought of completing this course and finding/starting a job that lends itself to this interest of mine.
So if anyone is reading this and is in similar shoes, my advice would be to take the plunge. I get it, the world right now is an uncertain place, and it might feel intimidating to throw more turbulence in. But I would embrace it. 2020 will undoubtedly mark the beginning of a new age anyways, so it could also be an opportunity for individual re-invention, if that’s the sort of thing you might be looking for.
