Leaving the Past Behind
Two months ago I quit my job. I had spent eight years working nights, weekends, and holidays which separated me from spending a lot of time with my family. My job was working with at-risk teenage boys who were in placement due to some sort of sexually harmful behavior. Managing, de-escalating, and preventing crisis was my daily responsibility while at work. Qualities such as patience, self-control, and a balanced temperament allowed me to handle crisis successfully. However, facing daily crisis events, and potentially traumatic events for others, starts to take its toll on any individual. Stress led to poor sleep, digestive issues, headaches, constant fatigue, mood swings, depression, anxiety, anger, and simply an overwhelming feeling of discontentment with my life. I must say that quitting my job has been one of the best decisions of my life. The stress is gone and I am finally feeling happy again.
The question I get most often now is usually, “What are you doing now?,” which essentially means, “Have you gotten another job yet?” It is hard to answer this question because I fear how people will respond. The short answer is that I don’t want another job, but the long answer is much more complicated
We are doing okay financially in the sense that the bills are getting paid and there is food on the table. This is due to my wonderful and fantastic wife who makes a good salary. We don’t really have surplus in funds but we also are not going into debt. From a financial perspective, I don’t have to rush to get a job or even “need” a job.
The job market in this area is not great, especially in the field of human services. I look at job postings but most of them are jobs that I know I would hate or I am simply not qualified for them. Applying for a job that I know would lead to the same stress that I had before is not something I am going to do. I also am not going to get a job just because everyone else thinks I should have a job. I am only going to try to get a job that I actually think that I will enjoy.
My family enjoys having me home and I enjoy being around to actually see them and spend time with them. I can now have more chances to positively influence my sons as they grow up. There are a lot of opportunities for me to actually spend time with my wife and demonstrate how much I really do love her. What good is making money if you never get to spend time with the people that you love?
When I really take the time to sit down and think about things and about what I want to do, I always come back to the same thing. I want to be a writer. I want to write blogs, articles, and books. I honestly don’t know what all that entails yet and I have no idea where to even begin or how I could earn a living doing it. Fear and anxiety regarding the unknown seem to want to hinder me from following through on this desire. I am beginning to push through the resistance though and I am beginning to write. My goal to start is to journal every day and move on from there. First I need to build the habit and then I can expand upon it.
A person can never know exactly what the future holds, but can only do his best to prepare. I know what I want my future to look like and I think that I am finally ready to start taking the steps to work my way there. It will be a difficult journey and certainly an uphill battle but if I stay the course, I should be able to reap the rewards
Originally published at seriousgeorge.net.
