Sunday, February 18, 2007

January 2005: I'm quitting

I quit.

I was doing great in a high-paying professional job in New York City, "living the good life," apparently all set to ascend the "success" pyramid. And then I quit, with no plan as to what came next. I simply resigned from the job, canceled my lease, and put my stuff in storage in a friend's basement. Then I spent several weeks visiting friends and family--sleeping a lot, reading some, watching TV, staring into space--before returning to New York. Still with no home, job, or grand plan.

Actually, that was the plan--to take some time off to figure out what I really want. Do I want to stay in NYC or leave? How do I want to earn a living? What kind of work-rest of my life balance do I want? Basically: Who am I, and how do I create a life that I'll really enjoy? (Because the one thing I do know: the life I was leading was not it.)

The journey is what I’ll share with you in this blog. When I quit my nice professional job with no plans, I didn’t know anyone else doing it. But in the last couple of years a few friends have also done it. Watching all of us, I realized that there are definite stages to the quitting process, and that we need a lot of support when we hop off the hamster wheel to try to create a new kind of life for ourselves. So I’m writing: to give support, encouragement, insights into what I’ve learned along the way, and hopefully create a community of people who have decided working 80-100 hours per week to get to the top of the ladder isn’t for them—despite years of familial and social grooming for the climb.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Alex:

Please continue this blog; I want to find out what you have learned by getting off the Hamster wheel, we all (well me anyway) want to get off sometimes; but unlike you I don't have the courage to abandon my mortgage payments, my "life style" and all the comes with it..... although I bet I could get used to playing more in Nature and seeing an occasional art exhibit or concert and such.

When are you posting the next chapter of your adventure ?