Another Why I Quit My Job Post

It’s the second Christmas that I’m not with my former company. Yeah, I’m still thinking about it. To say that I’m still hung up over my old job would be an understatement. Maybe it’s the amount of time i spent working there (close to a decade), or it could be that I do miss the people there. But unlike others who are pining for their old job, as in the work involved, I’m more of sending praises to the Lord above for making me see the light and waking me up from a nightmare.

I quit my job because it turned me into a robot.

You know how you often shut down your PC so that it will cool and you don’t have to pay much for the electricity? When you keep a stressful job, you don’t have the luxury of shutting down your workaholic mode to get your much-needed rest. All you can do is “reboot” your system and hope that next week or next month, you can finally sleep for 12 hours straight.

So I said goodbye to stress and the heck with the measly pay (relative to the amount of time and effort I put in, the pay is indeed small). When I quit, I didn’t want to listen to people telling me about how lucky I am that I have a job, or how hard it is to find a good job that pays the bills. I didn’t let myself get affected by that line of thinking because I know there are more than a few companies that will hire a compulsive workaholic.

Now, the only challenge for me is to manage my own expenses and think about the many ways to cope by working freelance. One more thing I have to deal with is responsible adulthood. Unlike in the US where people have ways to handle stuff like this, including social security disability, I don’t have much choice but to research ways to handle everyday living so that everything will flow seamlessly even if I don’t work the nine to five anymore.

So, it all boils down to having a choice. I worked a lot of hours in my former job, and I figured I can do the same thing over and over as a freelancer. But unlike before, I can switch the workaholic mode on and off depending on the needs of my family, and my own whims. Now, I have a choice.