What It’s Really Like to Quit Your Job (one week in)

Well right now it still feels like vacation. Before school I’ve been spending some time in Laguna Beach. My buddy is getting married so I planned a week and a half here around that. The intention was to take some time, just me, to really think about things. Slooooowww life down.  It’s been harder than anticipated to break out of the always on the go mindset and my life working 9-5. Take a minute to really think about if you woke up tomorrow with NOTHING you had to do. And not “I’m on vacation nothing to do.” I mean you don’t have a house to go back to. Don’t have a stack of emails to catch up on. Don’t have anyone to answer to. Don’t even have your typical bills to worry about. How would you feel? I’m assuming most initial reactions would be “yeah dude, awesome.” And it is pretty awesome. But I also know that I don’t have any of those things to go back to. It’s a hard concept for me to really grasp, and it’s something I’m hoping gets better with time. I’m not equating the 9-5 life to prison but the best analogy I can think of is Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, it’s hard to adjust knowing this isn’t a vacation.  I’m on a finite budget with no income.  I’m supposed to be thinking deeply about things from this new perspective before what will probably be the most intense 3 months of my life at cooking school.

So instead of drinking my face off every night and eating out, especially when the friends were around for the wedding, I’ve been making simple meals here, chefed up as best I can with limited ingredients.

Instead of planning every minute of every day I’ve been sitting where I am now, on my little deck with the ocean in the distance. Or on a public bench. I’ll either write or take notes on my phone for the blog. Or i’ll literally just sit there. When’s the last time you just sat somewhere pleasant and didn’t do anything? No phone, no book, no one to talk to. That’s when/how you really think about things. At least it’s how I do. But the right mindset is important. It’s cliche but it’s hard sometimes to actually be present.

Speaking about deep thoughts, I’ll leave you with one I had while in Seattle sampling some of their finest legal recreational activities. It’s a good one to share on one of my first posts since it has downhill implications. I’ll actually post it verbatim, as written in my notes app, knowing it would become a future blog post:

“Everyone should keep some sort of written record. Life moves so fast these days it’s easy to forget experiences. I’ve learned that [and realized it’s important] to go back and read how I was feeling at a given point in time…. At the moment this is [the blog] my written record. Which happens to be public. Which raises the question. Am I writing as I would if only I could read [it] or am I sub consciously writing differently knowing I have an audience and actively trying to write what people want to hear. I suppose it’s a hybrid. It’s important to write for me but at the same time I want to make people laugh”

I’ll also make clear what most people close to me already know. I like attention. I’m writing this blog for attention. I enjoy the spotlight. So just know that I know I like the attention and I appreciate you giving me attention.

But I also like to write. And I’ll write real stuff. So hopefully this can work as a two way street. I get the attention and you  get mildly entertained your my friend or family member and feel like you have to read.

School starts one week from today. Two days in Iceland before that. I’ll post again about Iceland. Thanks for reading.