The City That Never Sleeps
|
posted : January 31, 2012
When I let go
by Pepper http://pepperedthoughts.wordpress.com/ I did it. I finally did what I was dying to do for months. I quit my job. The job I struggled to get. The job that gave me a respectable answer to the question that pierced my insides, “So what do you do?”. It wasn’t easy. It requires courage to give up something that is the used as a measure to determine your worth. This world does have such shallow parameters, but that is how it is. I struggled for months. I hated my job from the beginning, but I decided to put up with it. I had the world’s worst manager. She made my life hell. Every day was a battle. I told myself to hold on, to not give up. I would wake up in the morning, full of dread. Once I was at work, I would be counting minutes. We could not touch our cell phones, we could not exchange a few lines with a colleague, we could not step out for a minute unless we had her approval. She couldn’t get more tyrannical. Her behaviour was hard to live with it, but that was not all. We were overworked most of the time. Her ways were erratic. She wouldn’t take accountability for the mistakes she made. She wanted to micromanage our work and that added to our misery. I say “our”, because she did that to our entire team. A bad manager I can still handle, what I couldn’t handle was the lack of interest in what I did. I felt absolutely no connection with the kind of work I had to do. It wasn’t my field, it wasn’t my area of interest. It was all so drab. I would force myself to complete the tasks I had to each day. Every single day I was tempted to call it quits, but each time I told myself how unwise that thought was. It made sense to hold onto this job until I found another one. One fine day I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. This isn’t the kind of life I want to live. I want to do something worthwhile and meaningful. I want to do something that fulfills me. I want to be passionate about my job. It’s amazing – the number of people who work without any drive or passion. Some of them hate their jobs, and they only do it because they have absolutely no other choice. But most others, well, they do have a choice. They might not hate their jobs, but they don’t love them either. They are just indifferent. But they will not walk away from them and chase their passion. Instead they will fool their minds into believing that they have a good deal. From what I have seen, most people choose to live stressful lives, swiveling in their corporate chairs. They feed their bank balance, but starve their undernourished minds. Honestly, I don’t judge them. We all make make choices that feel right to us. If we’re made to choose between a lesser paying job we’re passionate about and a higher paying job we’re indifferent to, different people would choose different things based on their priorities. For some, fulfillment means investing in their own property at 30 and taking foreign holidays annually. For a few others, fulfillment means a job they love, a relatively slow paced life with more time to smell the flowers, even if it means a lower purchasing power. Who am I to judge? My choice is to step back until I find a job that makes me happy. I am not willing to have a job I am indifferent to. I want to work towards the betterment of our society. That, I know will give me true happiness and will make me feel worthwhile. One of the things I want to do is work in the field of “Work Life Balance” in India. I think the work culture in our country is exploitative. It needs to be corrected. I have a degree in Human Resource Management and WLB was studied with a lot of interest. During my Masters, I spent hours researching this subject, writing long papers and doing more ground work. Unfortunately, in a country like India, I know this field has almost no scope. I hope to be able to change that someday. I know how beneficial, and even profitable WLB can be for an organisation if dealt with in the right way. I want to make more flexitime options available for working parents, not just mothers, but fathers too. I want every employee to have a better quality of life. There is so much I want to do in this field. I wonder if I will ever get the chance. For now, I keep the hope alive. I do know chasing your passion comes at a premium that not all can afford. At this stage, I have the luxury of letting go of a job that doesn’t suit me. At a later point, I might not have this luxury. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t ever come to that, but if it does, we’ll deal with it when we get there. Right now, I’ve been freed from a very toxic environment and I feel relieved. I now have time to do all that I want to. I hope to blog more. And after a break, I am going to spend all my time searching for a job that feels right to me. One I feel passionate and happy about. Wish me luck! |
look at the stars, look how they shine for you.
Any usable chat widget goes in here.