On Quitting The Job You ‘Should’ Keep And Leaving Everything Behind

It’s 3:56 in the morning. I have been awake since two, because I’m tired of sleeping. I’m tired of being in the deep sleep of my own life, while suns rise and set each day, and the hours of my life quietly drone on as I sit around waiting and praying that the way will reveal itself. I’m waiting to accumulate evidence to support my haphazard belief that I am actually capable of being happy. Some divine switch that will go off one day, letting me know that all my hours of waiting and patience have paid off because I took the “Smart and Responsible” path, and sacrificed a lifetime of immediate happiness for long-term comfort.

I’m tired of that passive bullshit.

I’m tired of being asleep in my own life. I’m tired of smart and responsible.

Today I will do everything I am told I shouldn’t. I will quit a full-time job with benefits, healthcare, a 401k. I will quit a job with a promising and lucrative future. I will quit a job that others have convinced me is worth it. I will quit this job because when I look at the lives that the “others” lead, I feel suffocated.

And all I see is darkness.

I do not want the life that the others lead. So why am I making the effort to mimic and mirror their path? Why do I stay and allow myself to feel small, worthless, and hopeless? Why am I wasting another minute pursuing a “dream” with a ceiling? A dream imposed on me by parents, standards, society, peers. A self-imposed dream because I am too afraid that I am not worthy of bigger and better.

I cannot be small anymore. I cannot play small. I can feel the exterior of my self-imposed shell cracking at every major joint in my body. I can feel the physical cage of my soul begging to fall apart. This transformation may look like destruction. It may look and feel like a breakdown. A train catapulting too fast down rusty tracks with lighter fluid pooling to either side, daring me to grab a match. Taunting me. Saying “Who do you think you are? To think the rules don’t apply to you?”

Anxiety. Fear. Shame.

Feeling like I am ready to crash and burn.

And ready to rise.

I am ready to be awake.

I will not sit on the sidelines of my life anymore, waiting to check boxes on my resume that should equate to meaning, longing, purpose, and self-love. Like I’ll reach the end of a maze and discover a golden box of worth that I’ll cling to for dear life because the prize was won after navigating through sacrifice and walls.

I’m blowing up the maze. I’m climbing over the walls. I’m not wasting another moment asleep at the wheel because it’s the safe thing to do.

I’m tired of waiting to figure out who I am really am. There is no time to wait and to waste. I cannot be passive or docile. I am not comfortable with small. I’m not going to wait for my savings to accumulate and my credit card bills to be paid before I begin to lay the groundwork of the life I actually want.

Fuck the foundation. I have everything I need already inside me. I just need to wake up to it.

I’m awake now.