When you lose your job you find your work. As far as the American labor industry goes, truer words have never been spoken. Nobody should ever let their job be in control of their life. More to the point, we shouldn’t let money control us AT ALL. Ever. Point blank period. I mean, money’s not even real. The currency we use is fiat, it’s fake. Money can’t give you power, it can’t give you respect, it can’t give you status. NO!!! WE give money its power, its respect, its status, its purpose. In return, money gives us stress.
I worked dead end jobs (bagging groceries, washing dishes, moving furniture) for most of my adult life. I probably spent two years in the kitchen of random restaurants, directionless, going to work Monday making just enough money to go back to work on Tuesday. I was miserable for the majority of time, and I certainly knew my career in the restaurant industry was headed nowhere… because I didn’t want it to head anywhere. I only continued to work because, at some point, I allowed myself to get comfortable earning three hundred dollars per week and because I was shook with the idea that if I quit I wouldn’t be able to get another job and I wouldn’t be able to make it.
The truth though is I wasn’t making it anyway. I was working fifty hours per week and I was STILL struggling. I was barely covering my bills and I’m embarrassed to admit the number of times I borrowed money from a family member or a friend. So here I was, miserable, working a job that didn’t even pay me a true living wage and staying there because I essentially let society convince me I’d be a fool to be unemployed, that somehow having no job was worse than having a shitty one.
Now that just doesn’t make any sense in retrospect, none at all. Would a clear thinking woman rather have an abusive husband or just be single? Of course any sane person would choose being single as opposed to being in a hurtful situation, but sometimes while in the midst of a situation people aren’t able to think clearly through their options and end up sticking in bad situations under terrible conditions. But if people are ever to take a second and take a step back and get some perspective they’ll realize it’s time for a change. And after the recognition all that is left is gathering the required courage to quit.
Luckily enough for me I got fired. Even with the knowledge I now possess that is still a weird thing to write, but it’s one of, if not the, truest things I’ve ever written (word to Pac). Once I was without a job (also relevant to note my girlfriend of a year and I broke up around the same time) I had the time to gain true clarity about my life, where I was, and where I was headed. I was afforded the opportunity to relax a little bit and chart out a plan for the future, discover what I really want to do with my life, and actually start doing it. That’s how I came upon starting this blog — I was finally able to take my love of writing more seriously without the nonsense of some bum job distracting me. I lost my job and found my purpose. Amazing.
And the most incredible thing is I didn’t end up suffering the financial repercussions I was so afraid of. I was able to take care of my bills and I was able to focus in on my creativity to discover some ways to earn more money than I was making at a day job anyway.
So I write this for anybody who was in a situation similar to mine. If you hate your job and know that it’s not going to take you to where you want to go in life, go ahead and quit it. You won’t die. You won’t go broke (and even if you do, with the right attitude you’ll bounce right back). Good luck with your future endeavors.