![]() ![]() Now I realise that while my past job brought in a decent pay cheque, it wasn’t a good investment of my life. But most importantly it helped me realize the things that were important in my life and gave me the courage to know that I can walk away if I was not happy. Is he a faithful God or what! It freed me to serve my family, friends, church, make new friends, have new hobbies, take new jobs, make new connections. It’s been 22 months since that crazy leap and I would make that choice again, may be even earlier. Do not be afraid do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. The December before God had dropped this verse from Joshua 1:9 in my heart, probably in preparation for what lay ahead, and I had stuck it on my office desk. I had the faith that God was leading me out, but not sure into what, but I was ready to embrace that uncertainty. So on my daughter’s first birthday, February 24, I left my employer for my home. ![]() They somehow already know what you truly want to become. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. There is no reason not to follow your heart…. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. The final punch for me was this line by Jobs: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever… Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. I shared my turmoil with a mentor colleague, who sent me Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford and I brooded over it for months. I can bet he was scared but he didn’t show it. After many days of tears and prayer, I talked to my husband and told him I need to take a leap of faith. I tried getting alternative employment for about a year just in case it was the particular job that was driving me crazy but nothing was coming through. Sometimes you know something so deep inside and you just can’t help not to do it. I used to quit my job in my head every Christmas. I couldn’t even explain to people why I desperately needed to quit my job but I knew I needed to do so. I wasn’t crazy to long for my home and children like a drug.Ĭhristmas in particular brought the blues because my office barely closed for Christmas break. Many women had fought those battles or were still fighting them. She talks about how women often value family over professional advancement and how as a maternal imperative, they are likely to choose their family at a cost to their jobs. She concludes by saying: “Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work.”Īt least I knew I was not the only one waging an inner war between office and home. I remember at that time reading an article on by Ann Marie Slaughter about the unresolvable tensions between family and career and thinking- this is so me. I talked to my close friends and people who had left their jobs and while they encouraged me, one told me that when it was time to leave, I would know. But logic, practicalities like budgets and loans, pride, and fear of people’s opinions and of being broke kept me frozen in this place of anguish. I had prayed for it, I was good at it, it paid well, it was in a great company and was in line with my career goals.īut for about a year before I left, there was this disquiet in my heart that I couldn’t place a finger to. About two years ago, I quit a dream job that I had believed was an answer to my prayers. ![]()
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