I Made Less Than A Cleaning Lady For Almost Three Years
After I quit my job I made less than a cleaning lady for almost three years.
I went from a safe and stable job with more money than I could ever spend to just a few hundred dollars a month.
Some months I made even less than that.
And other months I made $0.
And lot of people told me that I was stupid.
A lot of people still think that I’m stupid.
And maybe they’re right.
Who knows…
But I was willing to cut back on pretty much everything.
I was willing to cut back to figure myself out.
I was willing to cut back to be able to invest in myself.
To invest in learning new skills.
And doing new things.
And becoming good at something I wanted to become good at.
I was willing to cut back and work my face off for zero immediate return.
I was willing to play the long game.
And I’m still playing the long game.
I was willing to pay the price.
I was willing to pay the price of never getting where I wanted to be.
I was willing to sacrifice pretty much everything.
And I still am.
I was ready to eat dirt.
And I still am.
For how long?
As long as it takes.
So why am I even telling you this?
I don’t know.
Maybe because I feel that this is what it takes.
Maybe I feel that at one point in life you’ve gotta close a few doors.
And say no to many opportunities.
Opportunities that aren’t your opportunities.
Maybe I feel that at one point you’ve gotta close the doors that aren’t your doors.
The doors that are someone else’s doors.
Maybe they’re your parent’s doors.
Maybe your teacher’s doors.
Maybe your bosse’s doors.
Or maybe society’s doors.
Here’s the thing…
Closing doors is the only way to get a new set of doors.
Closing doors is the only way to see those other doors that weren’t in sight.
The doors that might or might not be your doors.
But there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever find your doors.
It’s difficult.
It’s difficult to close doors.
And it’s even more difficult to find your doors.
Especially when those doors that aren’t yours seem pretty lucrative.
When they seem to be the path to freedom. And success.
When they seem to help you climb a ladder.
But what if one day you arrive at the end of that ladder only to realize that you climbed someone else’s ladder?
I know. It’s difficult to close doors when you don’t even know where you want to go.
When you don’t even know what you want in life.
And that’s what makes it so tricky.
Because the only way to figure out all of these things is to do stuff.
To experiment.
To try many different things.
To invest in yourself.
To learn new skills.
To create things.
To master a skill.
And to not only do what you’re told to do.
You have to close doors to be able to open new doors.
New doors that might lead you somewhere closer to where you want to be.
Here’s the thing…
You’ve gotta close doors that will get you nowhere in order to be able to open doors that will get you somewhere.
What are you willing to sacrifice?
This was a part of my new book The Underdogs Guide To Winning When You’ve Failed At Almost Everything. I’ll release the next part tomorrow. It’s also available for pre-order for pay-as-much-as-you-want. You can grab your copy here: https://gum.co/XHyRD
Originally published at yanngirard.typepad.com.

