This Week I Quit My Job

This week I quit my job, for some people this would be a run of the mill event but for me it symbolises turning the page on much more than just my career for the last 4.5 years.  I’m excited but also a little nervous that soon I’ll be starting the next chapter, writing it as I go but with a new guiding philosophy and understanding of both myself and the world at large, but first…

The Past

Although I’ve pretty much been employed every day since my 16th birthday, I like to see my working life as pre and post a summer in Ibiza in 2005.  Post-Ibiza I’ve only had 3 jobs:

• Working / training to be an accountant
• Data, analytics & new systems for a mental health provider
• IT consultant, mainly for local government

The reason I like to split things pre and post Ibiza is that when I got back from Ibiza I decided If I ever wanted to achieve my real goals in life, I needed to knuckle down and work my way into a career of some sort.  As a result, from the age of 19 I’ve committed to working hard, working my way up, proving myself.  I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of that.

From a young age I had turning 30 as a huge future milestone in my head, like HUGE, a whole life plan that wound its way towards 30 and strangely went no further, my self-imposed goals weighed on me a lot.  I expected to have a wife, have a nice house, nice car, nice “stuff” and then on entering my fourth decade take that as a cue to start my own family and to “settle down”.  Basically, to be living the middle-class lifestyle I didn’t have myself when I was growing up.  From working hard, I kind of achieved the material parts of that (I’ve had a trusty Smart car called Joey for 10 years so some may argue not!) but the wife and family part less so.

I moved to Birmingham the day before my 30th birthday.  It was my first time living in a city, there was a music scene and nightlife, I had a nice house I could entertain in, things going on, it was a fun year or 2.  As I got further and further away from my self-imposed big 3-0 deadline it became apparent that the expected sudden shift in my attitude towards life wasn’t going to materialise.   My ex and I had realised we weren’t going to work out which made the family thing seem less likely in a practical sense and getting involved with the music scene had made it clear to me that I still had a lot of things I wanted to do for myself.  I began to resent the day job more and more for eating into time that I could be spending doing things I wanted to do, I also felt a bit rudderless and didn’t know what direction to go in both physically and metaphorically.

The core to those goals had always been the family part.  Since I was a kid, I had a real drive to “show my parents how it should be done” and I’d always felt like it was how I’d judge whether or not I’d been successful in life when the day came to meet my maker.  It took me a lot of thought, reflection and a little time before I decided that I hadn’t completely failed at life, that there were other yard sticks I could judge my life by when the time comes.  Now I want to be clear, I’ve not let go of that goal but what has changed is that I’ve realised that all the material stuff that I’d bundled up with it; the nice house, nice car, lots of money, the leafy middle-class life that I thought was intrinsically bound with doing family ‘properly’ just isn’t really important.  Yes, I know that I’m saying that from a relatively privileged position, but I also know happiness and love are far more important, money can be a tool that makes the day to day easier, but you don’t need all that additional material stuff.

The problem with realising that the material stuff isn’t actually that important, is that I’d played it safe for 15 years so that I could have the material stuff and I’d relegated other things I wanted to do with my life to a to do list with NEVER scrawled across the top.  I wondered how very different my life would have been if I had of prioritised other things; if I’d have finished the environmental science degree, if I’d have gone travelling for a couple of years, if I’d have taken the job in Andorra and then headed back for another season in Ibiza, if I’d pursued music or DJing…  I guess I’ll never know the answers and daydreaming about what could have been does nothing to change the future.

After the event, even a fool is wise.
Homer

The Future

I find travelling always helps free me of the constraints I normally apply to my thinking, I can come at things from a different angle, unencumbered from the version of me that exists in “normal life”.  It was January 2020 while I was in Australia that I had the headspace to finally make some constructive decisions about what was next.  In short, the 5-step plan was to:

1. Finish some decorating  ✅
2. Sell the house and all my possessions  ✅
3. Travel for a couple of years doing the digital nomad thing
4. Hopefully find my future wife
5. Find a country to emigrate to more permanently

As we all know 2020 turned out to be a pretty messed up year but I’ve ticked 1 and 2 off the list and 3 is pending.  I guess it’s going to be a bit of a waiting game with Covid restrictions before I can make any concrete plans or get an idea of roughly when I’ll actually be able to set off.  I bought a van before Christmas to do up into a camper, the plan was to travel around in that for a while closer to home until long distance travel was a bit more back to normal.  Unfortunately, it got stolen from right outside my house 10 days after I bought it!  I have been looking for another one but with the lockdown the dealerships are closed and very few are being listed ☹️

As a result, whilst my notice period winds down, I’m currently keeping myself occupied by helping to renovate my dad’s house.  I suggested the idea to him when I put my house on the market last year, he wasn’t initially keen although I think he’s now warming to it and seeing the benefits!

My hope is that he will sell up and emigrate to Australia when we’re done so he can be close to my brother and the grandchildren.  Even if he doesn’t decide to sell up, I’ll feel better knowing his house is all sorted.  I’m also really benefiting from having some company, I think we both are, 2020 was a lonely year!

I’m looking forward to having some time off once I’ve worked my notice, to breaking the ties both on my physical location and my time that work and mortgage have imposed for 16 years.  Most of all though, once I’ve had that rest, I’m looking forward to getting back to “working” on things that I can be passionate about; the environment, mental health and music I imagine!

TLDR / Lessons to My Younger Self

• Value your time and enjoyment over material possessions.
• If you ever think “I’ll be satisfied once I’ve bought this”, you’re wrong.  There’s always another thing, don’t get on the Jones’ treadmill.
• Work hard, but on things that really interest you or that genuinely make a difference.
• Your worth and success can never be judged on any one thing.  Be a good human, and you’ll be doing just fine.
• Age is just a number.
• Mum and Dad did their best.