Yesterday, I broke up with my job.

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

-Maya Angelou

Well, we broke up with each other I suppose.

And I have no plan for what’s next. At least not a real throughly thought out analyzed plan.

And to anyone that knows me, they’re probably wondering if this is some kind of cry for help, a sign that I’ve completely lost my mind, or if I did it in some wine induced stupor and didn’t mean to.

And logically, all of those assumptions aren’t too crazy. Logically I would never tell anyone to leave a job without a plan for another job so why, in my right mind, would I do just that. And before you think I just up and quit, I didn’t. It was a mutual, best for both parties, kind of thing. No angry emails, no packing up my boxes, and no personal escort out by security. Absolutely nothing like the movies.

My COO sat me down and just said: you’re not happy here.

And, well, I agreed. It’s not like I could pretend that my job had become anything other than just that, a job.

For the first time in my insane career, I hated going to work.

To be clear, I didn’t hate my company — the opposite actually — I couldn’t have asked for a better team. I didn’t despise my coworkers (they’re all amazing, honest, a little loving dysfunctional family). And while the lack of using Google for business was hard, it also wasn’t the reason. The team is amazing, the culture, while ever changing, was welcoming, but, I never wanted to go to work. Sure, once I was there, it was fine. We had laughs, we drank wine, we worked towards a vision that was greater than I think I’ll ever fully comprehend, but I wasn’t excited to go to work.

And, if you know me, no matter the insanity in which I’m working with or what insane creatives I’m working for, I’m always excited to go to work; even if it’s an 18 hour 7 days a week and causes me to cancel my plans, when I love what I’m doing none of that matters. So, the fact that I didn’t feel excited to go to work bothered me. And my team, being in the business of human elevation, noticed.

I doubt my level of unhappiness was well hidden so if they hadn’t noticed, I would have been more surprised.

And there wasn’t anything they could do to make it better — they’re a business and they have roles that need to be filled and the one I was filling (which was needed) wasn’t one that I was passionate about. And on the flip side, no business can afford to have people on just because while they figure out what their passion is or if the core of that passion isn’t possible for the business to deliver on at that moment. I get it. I’ve had to let people go from companies for the very same reason, so I wasn’t surprised the solution was breaking up. Not really.

What was surprising was that after the general panic of “omg, I just agreed to leave my job” (which the panic was real — haven’t felt panic like that since the JESS3 incident of 2012), I was surprisingly relieved. It was like telling someone you think that you should break up and them agreeing with you and parting ways without the bitter harsh anger that typically follows a breakup. The drama wasn’t there even if the thought of leaving the group of people made me sad.

But the question is now: what’s next?

I don’t think I’ve had this kind of void in my life since I graduated. I’ve always had a job. I always had some kind of half baked partially thought out plan. And now? Nothing. I do know that I don’t just want just a job, I want a career. My biggest mistake has been accepting positions that aren’t aligned with what I actually what to be doing for the next 50 years (probably less, I forget I’m aging but at this rate retirement is a very far fetched idea so who’s counting). But now, I may have the space to figure that out without the commitment of a 8–5.

I have no idea what happens next; I have no idea if next is in NY or LA or London (why not?), but I am excited to figure that out, to find the something that will make me excited to go to work again.

I’m not totally lost. I have an idea. I know the parts of my jobs that I’ve loved and which parts I haven’t so I can at least start there.

For now, I’m open for freelancing. If you have an organization and you’re looking for branding, overall strategy, or account management give me a call; an organization that needs a revamp on the internal org design and internal team development, shoot me an email; a brand looking to write or rewrite their story (both company wide and individually) shoot me a tweet.

Hopefully, I haven’t lost my mind, but for the first time in a long time, something tells me I’m on to something.

Here’s to a new unwritten chapter.