As a statistic in the Great Resignation, I want to give a shout out to others who have also said ‘enough’ and show my solidarity with those of you dealing with the fallout of losing income without something else lined up next. All my thanks and appreciation go out to r/antiwork for helping validate my need to resign. I get so frustrated with the news headlines and political banter about how “we don’t want to work”. If only they understood the truth— we do not want to work for exploitive capitalists who demand we derive our personal value from what we put in when we clock in or count our blessings by the number shown in our bank account. I would rather be broke than go back to that mindset. I am.
Life is hard. Life is harder when we are told to bend over backwards to do someone else’s immoral bidding at the expense of who we show up as for loved ones. For me, I went from earning a generous six figure income for most of my twenties at the trade off of hardly seeing my family because I worked every single weekend and lived 3 hours away. Didn’t save because I never thought it would end. A year into the pandemic my partner and I decided to move to my hometown, yet I was not ready to sacrifice my career all together so I accepted a position an hour and a half away that meant leaving at 6 am and not getting back until 7 pm for half my previous pay. I hated who I was when I came home most days soon after. I lost my sense of self in the mental gymnastics of diminishing my knowledge and not shining ‘too bright’ because i was working for incompetent leadership. I burned out. The management and overall firm was unconscious-ably awful to both employees and clientele.
I resigned a few weeks ago and am learning to live on less. I did not fall from grace; I gladly leapt into the void we are all conditioned to be afraid of. My partner and I are stronger than ever despite hard conversations and sacrifices. I am getting back to who I am as a human and giving to the world in ways I believe serve a greater purpose (volunteering, community engagement, gardening, etc). I know not everyone has this kind of backdrop to lean into, but I promise the leap of faith into the unknown is better than sacrificing your dreams and your best self forevermore.
One day I hope to work again, but for now I am learning to live on less while nurturing a newly realized pregnancy and focusing on operation Raise Good Humans.
How are the rest of you holding up?