Should you quit your job?

Maybe.

In this post, I’m going to share why I quit my job and the single thing I asked myself before I was sure I absolutely needed to quit my job.

You can use the same logic to see if quitting your job is your next step too.

My Spiritual Journey

In addition to yoga and spirituality, on this blog I share tales of my journey with the intention of sharing the lessons I learned from each adventure… call them fables from the spiritual awakening journey.

My spiritual journey took me from my home in Canada to remote parts of the world in the form of a one-way ticket to Peru.

There, I met people who went on to become lifelong friends, befriended animals and was forced to embrace chaos and start going with the flow of events in my life. However scary, impossible or thrilling a situation seemed at the time, it ultimately contributed to who I am today: grounded, stable and ready to inspire and lead you forward on your own spiritual journey.

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With that, let’s dive right in to the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back and led me to quit my job and ultimately, my way of life.

My decision to quit my job began with the decision to leave the well-trodden path.

Throughout my undergraduate years, I heard exhilarating tales of people going abroad to places like Africa, Asia and South America to volunteer, work, pursue their studies and just live life.

I myself was very timid and afraid to even approach that line.

I remember frequenting the Study Abroad department, getting as much information and paperwork as I could and then burying it somewhere in my books as a thought adventure – something I loved to dream about but would never do.

At the end of a grueling 5 years of university, I was exhausted.

Stories of travelers who found peace in a year abroad and came home to pursue their careers inspired me.

Maybe I just needed to let loose and live life. I’d spent my entire life living in the mould of society, effectively ignoring what I wanted and doing as I was told. If I took just one year for myself, maybe I’d be able to settle down and live the life I was expected to live.

Mustering up all my courage, I bought a backpacking bag and took my first step into the unknown.

After a year of backpacking, that too had lost its charm.

I had thought my search for more would be satiated abroad.

I had gone on a pilgrimage in a search for purpose, peace of mind and deeper meaning in life, and though I had grown more in my year abroad than I had in my entire life, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

Of course, it didn’t help that I couldn’t put name or form to the object of my quest, but at that point, the process of elimination seemed to be as good an option as any.

I lived the life that everyone wanted: partying, travelling, going on adventures, finding solace in the sea, vising urban and rural landscapes, staying in high end places as well as camping and hitchhiking. I ate all different types of food, met so many different types of people and became comfortable in so many different environments that after a year I was worn out.

I had fulfilled all the desires I’d had during my studies to be free and explore what the world had to offer and at the end of it all, I learned that none of these desires could fill that gaping hole inside me.

I still felt stuck in life.

I returned home feeling like I was back at square one.

Yes, I had faced many of my fears and overcome self-limiting beliefs, but I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

An opportunity to work in a green energy start-up arose and I jumped on it. Having and building a start-up was something that I’d wanted to do towards the end of my last year of university. I hadn’t pursued it at the time, but this time, I wouldn’t let the opportunity pass me by.

So, I went back to work thinking that this time, maybe, just maybe, I could be happy.

It was a grand total of 2 months before I started feeling the same intense dissonance inside me. I felt like curling up into a ball and disappearing; this wasn’t the answer either. I thought a start-up environment would provide me the stimulation and dynamism I needed to be content, but it was just another office job.

At this point, I thought I was going crazy. I didn’t know what was wrong with me and why I wasn’t happy.

I really, truly tried to make myself fit but everyday all I could see was my old-fashioned boss placing me on a pedestal as a shiny, new acquisition to his office: his new nanotechnology engineer. At the same time, the mediocre salary he gave me communicated that I was worth less than my male peers.

Beyond that, I was beginning to realize that my work didn’t call me. What I had spent 5 years studying with borrowed money, wasn’t what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.

Every day of my life felt like a chore.

Get up, eat breakfast, pack lunch, go to work, come back, cook dinner, have an hour or two to myself, go to bed.

Rinse and repeat.

Looking down the road and seeing myself remain in this box forever was perhaps the most terrifying and demoralizing thing I could imagine.

The practical side of me argued that regardless what I wanted to do, I needed money; my student loan wasn’t just going to disappear. So I continued to hold my tongue and smile politely every time my boss stared at me for too long or watched my screen from over my shoulder.

A miniscule raise later, I knew that more money would never justify enduring an environment like this for the rest of my life.

Again I weighed my options: should I remain in this position and pray I stop feeling like this or take a another leap of faith, quit my job and hope something would work out in the absence of a 9-5 job?

It all came down to one choice: security and certain misery or blank, undefined space.

That blank space, as I had experienced during my travels, could become a marvelous adventure full of surprise and delight.

If I stayed where I was, I would never be happy.

If I left, there was potential for me to be happy.

For me, the choice was an obvious one.

I quit my job and never looked back.

The deciding factor

When I quit my job, I didn’t know that I was on a quest for higher purpose. I just knew that something inside me was telling me that there was more out there for me.

If you’re in a similar boat, here’s the key takeaway from the post above:

I quit my job because I looked down the road and knew from my very core that I couldn’t be happy in the role I was in or any other role on that career path. No amount of money would ever be enough to make the sacrifice of my happiness worth it.

I stopped entertaining the irrational hope that things might get better down the road. I knew that every day would be like this one: frustrating and upsetting.

I was upset with the world but most of all, I was upset with myself for not having the courage to listen to my heart and quit my job.

I knew my work didn’t resonate with me, but I still didn’t have the guts to take the next step because of my paralyzing fear of change and and failure.

After six months in my role at the green energy start-up, I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat down with myself and asked myself if I was ready to live like this forever – ready to discard the possibility of happiness just so that some part of me would feel safe.

The answer was no and I knew I had to do it. I knew I had to quit my job.

So I did.

I quit my job to find my purpose in life and a place where I could be my authentic self.

Looking back now, it’s the best decision I ever made for myself.

So ask yourself: are you ready to sacrifice your happiness and spend the rest of your life feeling the way you feel now?

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