Close the book

About three years ago, I hated my job. Well… hate is a strong word. I’ll just say, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. It wasn’t my passion. The kicker is, I’d felt that way for over seven years.

Seven.

I’d never been excited to go to work in the morning, and I’d never felt that fulfillment that I saw others getting from their work. At first I didn’t think I needed it. I figured, as long as my paychecks were hitting, who cared? I told myself, I’d just do the things I enjoyed when I got off work. And that worked at first, but then I started coming home feeling so drained from ‘faking it’ all day, that all I wanted to do when I got home was veg. It was a bad situation, and I knew it.

But then something happened.

I got promoted.

And the year after that- it happened again. So here I was excelling, and now I was more confused than ever. It felt like I was advancing, and I was. But do you know what was really happening? I was just turning the page in the same book.

If the book you’re in now is unhappiness, misery, or even dysfunction, does it really matter if you’re advancing in that book?

The thing that I didn’t realize at the time, was this. Making progress in something that is wrong for you isn’t beneficial progress. It took me 7 years to get that. And only, when I quit my job, did I close that book. My son being born, was the only thing that gave me the courage to make that choice.

Please don’t wait as long as I did. You don’t need to wait for a life changing event in your life to give you the courage to close a book that was never meant for you to read in the first place. 

And guys, this isn’t just about work. Some of us are in really toxic relationships. Some of us feel like we don’t deserve to get out of them. I want you to know, you are worth it. It’s time for you to stop turning the page, and pick up a new book.

Others of us are in toxic relationships with ourselves. We talk to ourselves in a way that we would never talk to others. We put ourselves down, we self-sabatoge, we feel that we aren’t enough. If this is you, I can say without a doubt in my mind, that it’s time for you to pick up a new book.

The good news is, it’s never too late for you to make that change. It doesn’t matter if it’s been seven months, seven years, or seven decades; it’s never too late for you to close that book.

When I knew that I would be quitting my job soon, I posted this quote up on my desk. I looked at it every morning when I came in and every evening before I left. It helped remind me that I got to call the shots in my own life. It helped me have a mini ‘woo-saa’ moment.

Life is short, people say that all the time. But, I’ve gotta believe that at the end of it all, we’d feel much better if we spent time doing the things we were meant to do. How much happier would we all be if we just had the courage to pick up a new book?

I just have one more thing to say before I let you go. Don’t feel that closing a book is the same as giving up. It’s not. It’s you learning, and refocusing. It’s you having the courage to admit that something isn’t working for you. It’s you evolving to become a better person. It was hard for me to come to terms with this. It’s ok to try something new. It’s ok. This is your life, and you deserve to live it to the fullest.

Make life sweet and learn all you can.