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Should You Quit?

 2 years ago
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4 min read

Should You Quit?

I just quit my career. This is what I know

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Photo: Ahtziri Lagarde/Unsplash

Ding! Text message from…

Ugh, I can’t.

Not one more message, no matter who it is. My bandwidth is broken.

My retail career lasted over twenty years. Every holiday I said it should be my last. It was so hard. I was perpetually exhausted. When I would see a text pop through from my family, I couldn’t even respond until my day off.

Replying to a text felt like another chore, a monumental task.

I was off the grid and out of touch. I had been sucked into this retail black hole, and I would only emerge when the season ended.

After two decades, I quit.

You think you may want to quit your job. There are things you like and things you don’t. Some people are incredible, and others you could do with never seeing again. You enjoy showing up every day. You know the routine, and your paycheck is decent. You understand how to solve problems, and that’s half the work.

I get it. I’ve been there.

I bemused about another line of work — mail carrier maybe. I could drive around, listen to music, and deliver mail. I would have holidays off. Teaching could be fun. Having summers off sounded delightful, but my mom, a former teacher, warned me about school district politics and stick-in-the-mud superintendents.

Alas, I plugged away in retail.

I was good at it; really good at it. It’s gratifying to do your job well. It’s fulfilling to be a resource for others. I loved the people that worked in my building. I ran my last store for nine years, so everyone was there because of me. That was a gut-wrenching thing to leave.

Here’s how I knew it was time.

My hobby began to cut into my career

I started writing online two years ago, and I started slow. I wrote sporadically. I didn’t know what I was trying to achieve; I just enjoyed the process. As I learned more and took on more content creation, it became all I wanted to do.

I would get up early to write and then scramble to get out the door on time to make it to work because I didn’t want to stop writing.

While at work, I couldn’t help check my messages and see if my article had been accepted or someone had sent me revision notes. I began to become consumed by the craft and the process.

I was bored

Twenty years is a long time to do anything. After nine years in one building, I was extremely bored. I could’ve done that job in my sleep.

My bosses gave me some stretch assignments, which helped a little. Basically, I got more work for the same salary. This distracted me for a little bit, and then the pandemic hit.

For the past two years, my sole focus has been keeping my team safe and informed. Once everyone got used to the crisis and learned how to survive, I couldn’t go back to Monday Zoom calls, schedule writing, and absurd company practices. Especially now that all I really wanted to do was write.

I was financially set up to take a risk

My husband works full-time, and I get medical coverage through him. We don’t have kids and have saved some money because we haven’t done much in two years.

We’ve owned our home for fifteen years, so the mortgage isn’t going up. One car is paid off because it’s ten years old. I need to care for my favorite canine, clean my tiny house, and that’s about it.

My husband cooks at home every night. We don’t spend money on extravagant things, so I could quit and take a couple of months to write and continue to make connections.

Thinking logistically about your financial situation isn’t exciting. It’s way more fun to exclaim, “I quit!” but it’s necessary.

Takeaway

You know when you’re on a road trip, and you take a freeway exchange that loops you over, under, and around the freeway you were on, then takes you in the direction you want to go? It’s like that.

Leaving my career felt like a long and winding off-ramp.

Grateful, lucky, humbled — I don’t know how to describe the feeling when the people you love support what you’re doing. It’s indescribable.

Everyone supported me in my decision to quit. It was overwhelming, and I almost couldn’t handle it. I would just randomly break out into tears. That’s how you know you’re on the right track.

Quitting a job can be freeing and exciting. Leaving a career can be terrifying.

If you’re scared but feel there is no other choice than to move toward this new thing, you’re on the right track. If you cannot stomach another meeting, Zoom call, or disagreement about policy, it’s time to head out.

Every small move you make toward what you want will compound. Eventually, your hobby may begin to make you money, and you can kiss your current job goodbye. It may not be easy, but it will be worth it.

Not a member of Medium yet? You can join here and support me and hundreds of other writers. If you enjoyed my writing, join my free weekly publication, Traveling Money. Each week, I encourage you to slow down and take a look around. You’re a human, and that’s enough.


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