My Job Is Getting In The Way Of My Career, What Should I Do?

When I was younger, they made it seem so easy: Get good grades, then get into a good school. Get into a good school, then get a great job that you love and make more money than Scrooge McDuck. I got the best grades. I was in multiple extra-curricular activities in high school. I got all of my high school Volunteer Service Learning credits helping teachers. I was a beast at my education in high school.

College was a bit more of a challenge, it took me an extra semester for me to get my bachelor’s at a highly accredited college but I did that as well. Unlike most of my friends I got a job paying above minimum wage; but, unlike most of my Facebook friends I was not doing what I wanted to do. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. People would often ask me what I wanted to be and what I had planned for an obscene amount of years in the future. I would just stare at them blankly and respond with a shoulder shrug.

However, three years after college I finally figured out what I want to do. I want to be a fiction writer and I am excited because I am already halfway through writing my first novel. The downside is, that job that I told you about that I got right out of college is the only thing keeping me from starving. I spend 40-50 hours a week answering calls in a call center pretending to care about why people are mad and then pretending like the complaints that I file actually matter to some billion dollar company.

Now I am at a crossroads in my life. I sit and ask myself ridiculous questions: Am I turning into that person who is too afraid to quit her job and follow her dreams? Am I too afraid of homelessness, and poverty that my dreams should not matter anymore? I have come to a crossroads in my life and I think it is time for me to man up and make a decision.