The Moment Of Truth - When Work Stops Working For You

I've been there, you've been there - when a job that you used to wake up enthusiastically for turns into a place you dread going to. It sometimes makes me wonder about our parents' generation - how did they manage to work at the same place for all those decades, what sort of fortitude did they have that our generation lacks? 

The turmoil is real - why would I leave a job that so many would kill to have? How will I pay my bills? What if I never find anything else that will make me happy? Is it really that bad? Then you find yourself sometimes crying in the bathroom in-between meetings, feeling your heart pounding out of your chest when you look at your inbox, wishing you could somehow run away from it all. 

But why is no one else here as unhappy as I am? You second-guess yourself. You remind yourself to appreciate all that this job gives you. You remind yourself that this is what you always thought you wanted to do. You hear everyone say, "But you have a great job".

When it's time to leave, it's time to leave, and this does not only apply to jobs. Sometimes there really is no way to salvage a situation, or to be happy in a place you are no longer supposed to be in.

This article captures this part of life so well - the guilt, the questioning, the regret and the final guilty pleasure. The beginning instantly hooks you in with an anecdote about the writer's father leaving his widowed mother in a small East African village because he knew he needed to find food for her. "I knew I did not belong at home in the village," he said. When the writer needs to find similar strength to leave her job, she remembers her father and says, "I did not belong there".

With those five words, she is able to free herself from all her doubt and make the right choice for her.