Quitting My Full-Time Job to Become a Writer Was the Best Mistake I Ever Made

By nature, I tend to be a pretty careful, calculated person.

However, if I’m going to intentionally make a mistake, I want it to be a really cool mistake.

A really cool mistake like saying “kiss my ass, parental expectations!” and “hello, beautiful career suicide!”

Sure, a full-time job at a growing Silicon Valley startup with a good salary, nice benefits, a casual atmosphere, and a flexible schedule is something to be proud of.

But the regularity, the certainty, the singularity of purpose of working in a role that does little to foster my own creative aptitude were the primary factors behind my decision to jump off a ship that was very much afloat.

And it was that regularity, certainty, and singularity of purpose that left me mentally depleted after coming home each day, too intellectually spent to work on any of my creative endeavors.

Even though my role at the time was somewhat creative (I worked in marketing), there was little in my daily tasks that could satisfy my appetite for artistic expression.

And so I broke up with a future that guaranteed a comfortable living (“It’s not me, it’s you”), and hooked up with a future of uncertainty, doubt, and unexplored potential (“Hey, baby. Come here often?”).

I’d saved up enough money to last me over a year, so I knew that, major disaster notwithstanding, my descent into poverty would be a slow one.

Now that I’m traversing the virgin terrain of unemployment, I have the fascinating luxury of watching my bank account shrink every week.

I get to experience the thrill of paying for my own inadequate health insurance.

I get to feel the excitement of explaining to people what I do for a living.

And I love every second of it.

I’ve never felt so creative, so resourceful, so driven to prove my vast naysayers wrong and my few believers right.

Now that I’m freed from the restraints of having to boost the vanity metrics of a growing startup, I see stories everywhere now, wondrous literary fodder waiting to be transformed into my next story.

In coffeeshops, at parks, in text messages, in my backyard, in the Pacific Ocean, in the eyes of complete strangers — everywhere I see grist for my creative mill.

And because of this massive influx of ideas and inspiration, I have numerous projects in the hopper, in addition to the time to pursue them and the focused curiosity to determine my next project.

Another unexpected benefit of being an unemployed writer is that desperation is a great motivator — watching my funds blow away as if snapped out of existence by Thanos really gets the ol’ motivation muscles pumpin’.

Am I saying that you should quit your job to pursue a risky but fulfilling life?

No.

This path isn’t for everyone, and it comes with its share of worries.

But sometimes it pays to not let reason, logic, and facts muffle your call to adventure.

Are you listening to yours?

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