How it all started
Work hard everyday and you will be rewarded. Right?
Hustling every day thinking to reach your goal one day. And then you’ll be happy. Right?
Work hard, play hard. If you’re showing up and giving it your all, you’re going to get more responsibility and climb that career ladder.
Higher, faster, better. A few months later my work had paid off and I got that promotion, aiming for the next one right after. Making more money, I started to spend more. Weekends I treated myself for the extensive work. Eventually, the next week started and I did it all over again. The moment I’ll finish that sprint, I’ll be happy. At least that’s what I thought.
The moments of success did come, however not how I had imagined. A quick moment of “you did it”, cheering with the whole team. A moment later, the next sprint started. I was always hoping to have that moment of happiness, where I would think - “now life is good”, I did it!” Never got there.
What happened instead: My life was all about work.Work, Eat, Netflix, repeat. Cooking? No time for that, thinking about recipes was already too stressful. Working out? Maybe on the weekends. My thoughts: I need this job to afford all the things I love. Traveling, eating out, doing whatever I want to without worrying about money. That’s what you do if you want to have a successful life. So I kept on hustling.
Living fast paced, life is just flying by. Sometimes I wondered: what did I do this week?
What is happening to me?
As I continued my life on the fast track, I got more and more stressed. The smallest hickups already made me anxious and nervous. Failures hit harder. Especially my mood was really dependent on how good or bad my day at work went. If I didn’t have a good day, the rest of my life was seemed worse as well. Work took over most parts of my self. If I had a bad day, I couldn’t think of anything else. Even the tiniest missteps made me furious.
Eventually, I realised that I defined myself through work. It effected all areas of my life. I could hardly sleep sometimes. Hardly stopped talking about work. Rarely went out.
I felt drained and could see my joy drift away. This couldn’t be the happy life that I had dreamed about. However, leaving society to live in a cave was also not really an option. What should I do?
At some point, I realised that I just couldn’t go on like this..
Now!
Everyday, the will to just quit everything grew bigger. This can’t go on for the rest of my life. After a particularly bad day, I decided - that’s it. I’m done.
I remember the day I quit my job: I was scared like hell. Feeling hot and cold. After I finally said the words out loud, I felt a big sense of relief fall off my shoulders. A small part of me still wondered: are you doing the right thing? No turning back.
Now what? It’s always been my dream to travel the world. Why not, I thought. Might as well make the best out of it. Just get on a plane figure things out. All of a sudden, I learned about others that also traveled the world and loved it. Now or never! I started to put life into my own hands.
