If you know me really well, you’ll know that I have been a resident in the city of Louisville, Kentucky for the last seven years - my only years living here in the United States. If you know me pretty well, you’ll know that I attended Eastern High School when I moved here, and then attended the University of Louisville, where I also worked as a Resident Assistant on campus and met my wife Rebecca. You’ll also know that I became a Christian and a member of Sojourn, a local church.

But if you only somewhat know me, you may atleast know that I have been working for Apple Retail for almost two years. And if you’re just hearing about me today, you’ll know this for sure about me: today is my last day working at Apple.

These two years have been with the company have been mostly great for the season of life I was in: most of the two years, I was a single living on my own, without much commitments or much of an idea of what I wanted to do on a long term basis.

But that changed towards the last few months of my employment: I got married to my best friend, got more involved with my church community, and with the help of some phenomenal people I’ve collaborated with inside and outside of Louisville, I gained a clearer focus on what career path I wanted to take: its one that no longer aligns with Apple.

Don’t get me wrong: working at Apple has its perks. It was a decent paying job (for one in retail) and had great benefits, both of which were immense blessings for the time I was employed there. Also, I worked alongside some of the most talented, hard working, intelligent and interesting people I’ve ever had the privilege to meet so far. I’ll forever be grateful for the interactions I’ve had and connections I’ve made in my time in the job. If you are one of them, thank you so much. I will enjoy visiting the Apple Store as a customer, because of you.

However, despite these good things, I was not happy with the job, and as time passed by, I was increasingly dissatisfied. Driven by these few key factors, this dissatisfaction helped me see the writing on the wall and ultimately pushed me to leave Apple and instead pursue a career of my dreams elsewhere:

1. There was no real growth within my role. All in all, in my experience, it was a dead end retail job. There was no prospect of a career. If I wanted to move up, it would be to a more management-type role, which I was not interested in, as it didn’t help in growing the skill set I was interested in developing. This should be a deal breaker for anyone serious about their career, as it was for me: the moment you stop growing in your job is when you know something needs to change.

2. There was an almost complete lack of work-life balance. Yes, I know it’s retail, and that means say goodbye to a regular work schedule and your weekends. But this was more than that: The availability demanded by the job and management made it difficult to commit to anything outside of work, even things essential to my wellbeing, like a date night with my wife, a consistent and timely diet or exercise, and attending my local church regularly. In other words, your work-life balance is essential to your flourishing as a person. Don’t compromise this under the guise of being a workaholic. The legacy of your individual life will probably outlast your identity at any single workplace.

3. I was working a higher position without the equivalent pay. I won’t expound on this factor too much, because I’m not allowed to disclose much about my job experience at Apple. But it would suffice to say that taking on a higher payscale job without the higher pay, while others working the same job do, can only be tolerated so long before it dampens the passion to give your all in the workplace. Long story short: Money isn’t everything, but it does count. Don’t sell yourself short.

4. It stunted my ability to grow outside of the job. Imagine this scenario: A week after I help kickstart Goopply, the tech news website I co-founded on my own time, I am forced to stop my involvement with it by a manager at work, citing an alleged conflict of interest. I’m not stating that this scenario really happened. But if it did, it would be amusing to me because I never alluded to the company. Neither would I be breaching any accessible work policy. But the main point being: if your efforts to grow in other areas on your personal time are stunted by your growth-less day job, you may need to draft an exit plan soon.

Given all these reasons, I’ve decided to cut my losses with my current job, and instead decided to pursue a career path I’m more passionate about - startups, technology and journalism. Or perhaps, a startup for technology based journalism? There seems to be little work done in this field locally. I have an idea or two in mind as to what I may want to build. I can’t wait to share these ideas with you sometime.

But as of right now, they’re just ideas. To bring these ideas into life, I’ll need all the help I can get. If you have a vested interest in Louisville, technology, startups, or journalism, any advice, insight, resources, or connections in the field you can send my way would help mentor me well in my path ahead. For now, I’m also going to continue to be the editor in chief at Goopply, helping produce, edit and publish content on the news site. Check it out sometime.

I want to end with focusing on the big picture and looking into the future: in Louisville, there are other needs to be met, other opportunities to be seized, other occasions to rise up to, other careers to be pursued, and other lives to be enriched. As I turn 23 in a couple of days, I plan to use the year 24 to maximize the resources there are in this city to be a mover and shaker as much as possible, and help make a real impact in others’ lives while doing so.