The day he told me he wanted to quit his job

C. Befoune
Jul 25, 2017 · 7 min read
Source: Reader’s Digest

I was devastated.

I have a friend. Actually I have a few friends, but that one is among those I can call “special friends”. Because he is special in every aspect. He is kind, funny, hardworking and passionate. He is passionate about his work… and about his passion. Sorry for the redundancy.

Lately his passion for his passion grew more than his passion for his work. And he broke the news to me. He wants to quit his job. My heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t breathe normally anymore.

Why, you may ask, since I did just the same 4 months ago. Why?

Because I don’t want anyone to go through what I am going through at the moment. I don’t want him to face that life, a life made of passion and only that.

Let me explain.

It always seems like the beginning of a success story when someone says “I am quitting my job to pursue my passion.” Even for those saying that, it seems like the beginning of a success story. It seemed to me, and it still does. That is not the problem. The problem is the journey between quitting the job and being successful in what one does.

It is hard, my people.

I was not supposed to write this article today. I was supposed to write this in five years, when I would already be successfull in my work and would remember all this with a smile on my lips. But for you, my friend, I will.

Don’t quit your job to pursue your passion.

Find a way to earn money from your passion first.

When people told me that, I was like “these dudes do not know what they are talking about. I am passionate and my work is essentially for the common good. So why should I ruin it with money”. If you read me here on Medium, then you know what I think of money: it is the devil.

I never thought about money when it came to Elle Citoyenne, but today I am. For it to last I need to survive, and for me to survive, I need money. So ideals and all these glittery-eye-stuff are cool, but though it is the devil, it is a devil you can’t live without.

Don’t get me wrong my people. The aim here is not to initiate something just for the sake of money. No. The aim is to make a living through something you are passionate about, something useful, something you are ready to give up your income for.

Be ready to be broke… like broke FOR REAL.

Giving up an income is being ready to live with no money at all. Money does not fall from the sky. You have to work to earn it, and if you don’t work… do the maths!

I did not give up my income. I traded it for time. I bought time for me to be able to “live my passion”. Time is expensive. It is one of those things so expensive that you cannot buy it without losing everything. I lost all my money for time.

When I say yes to a job today because I need to survive, I sacrifice my passion for money. And I feel guilty because I feel like not reaching my goals. I am angry at myself when I work for someone and give myself for the person to thrive. Who would give themselves for my project at the moment except for me ? I feel like betraying myself, cheating on my dreams. But I need to survive. I need to disappoint myself to survive, and I need to sometime give up what I am giving everything for to be able to survive. It is painful, my people. Very painful.

Be ready to think, think, think and think until your head explodes from the inside.

It is two different things to pursue a passion while working and giving up everything (money is not everything, but means to survive is everything) to pursue a passion.

The duty to get it right.

That’s what will make your head explode, my friend. The duty to get it right. It has to work. It has to be perfect. People have to like it. And for them to like it you have to think about strategies, ways to appeal them, ways to retain your audience, ways to make your product better than everything on the market.

You will stop thinking about dressing fancy or going out with friends. It will all be about thriving. Your time. Your thoughts. Your love. Your hopes. You will burry all that in your project.

Be ready to fail.

Everyday is a failure. Everyday. Everyday you will find something that is not right, something you have to enhance to do better, something someone else is doing better than you. And you will feel like a failure, asking yourself why despite everything you are putting in, it is not thriving.

You will not notice the step forward you make because you will always need more. Greedy for more. Everything you will reap will seem meaningless because you know you have to do more to go farther.

It is not a bad thing since it will make you go farther. But it will cause you pain, indescribable pain. You will always feel like the last on the line, the one behind everyone else, the one who is not succeeding despite the efforts made.

You will hate yourself, hate your project, hate those around you doing better at least once a day. Be ready for that too.

Be ready to be overwhelmed by fear.

What if it was the wrong choice? What if I fail? What if all this is hopeless? What if all this pain and worries make me hate what I am working that hard for?

Be ready to hate your project when you will feel exhausted in and outside. Be ready to tell yourself “It does not worth it, give up and go back to a normal life. All this is bullshit.” Be ready to regret the days you had nothing to think of when it came to growth. It was the problem of your boss. You did not care.

I used to be scared of making my passion my job. Because I knew what it took.

I work that hard (2 jobs) for my passions (Elle Citoyenne and Self-Ish) not to be corrupted, not to have to provide money for me to survive. I work that hard to be able to keep my passion for these platforms. I fear I will not write out of love for it anymore, but because I have to, because I have to earn money. I fear my passion becomes an obligation. I fear I will lose everything because the need for money will make me distort what I love doing at the moment.

I wrote this on October 8, 2016.

It will not get better.

It will not, since the journey to success is a long one. Be ready to suffer all this for long, sometimes for years. Be ready to be despised because you do not have enough money to cater for your family. Be ready to be belittled because you don’t have all the fancy things your “friends” have. It is not even about the fancy things. It is about not having enough to afford them.

Be ready to invest all the money you may gain in that project. Be ready to cater for it as if you were catering for your child. Be ready to put it first. Be ready to stop existing in your own eyes for your project to move on. Be ready to turn yourself into a machine made for the project to be a success.

The duty to get it right.

Be ready not to have a single day off, because even when you are off you think, think, think and think. What to do to get better? How to innovate to go farther? What to do not to lose hope in my own project?

Be ready to hate yourself when you will get sick and burned out because you physically gives too much to your project, more than you are capapble of. Be ready to hate yourself not because you care for your health, but because you know your success depends on every single second you spend working.

My friend, I don’t want you to quit your job because it all seems easy from the outside. It is not. I don’t want you to quit your job to live the same life as I am though it is for a greater good, I love you too much to see you suffer everything I am suffering at the moment. And the suffering is not about to end. I am only at the beginning of my journey to success but it already seems so heavy…

Hello, my name is Befoune and I left my job to follow my dream!

I created the citizen media Elle Citoyenne to promote Citizens’ opinion and participation, and celebrate citizens’ actions for their communities in Africa and across the world. My dear friend Tchassa Kamga and I created the publication Self-Ish on Medium to document our lives as humans and share our experience in self improvement and what we call human relationships.

C. Befoune

Written by

Bleeding on paper, unleashing the human. I stopped writing here. Find me on mesdigressions.com

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