This is the second article following The Irony of Quitting My Job to Take a Sabbatical, a series on what I learned and what I’d recommend from quitting my job to take a six-month sabbatical without another job in sight. Here, I talk about the years leading up to the tipping point, and the ways I hid from the change I needed to make in my life.
“Without change, something sleeps inside of us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
– Frank Herbert
Change is one of the few certainties in life, and yet many of us choose to reject this certainty, preferring known evils to the vast unknowns. I know this all too well. It’s much easier, safer and more convenient to succumb to the status quo—even when it’s no longer beneficial.
Leaving college, I thought I was on a great career track. The first three years, I did all the things I was supposed to do: worked long hours, volunteered for extracurricular resume-builders, attended company networking events, and got promoted.
The next three years before I quit, the track started heading downhill. And even though I knew corporate finance wasn’t for me, I tried my best to make the wrong thing work.
[Read more…] about The 4 Ways We Hide From Change