Three years on from “I Quit”
As Ryan reminded me the other day, this week marks the third anniversary of us quitting the last jobs we held and going into business for ourselves. For those of you who didn’t know us during that phase of our lives, I was a producer with Current TV and Ryan was a product manager for the gaming division of CNet.
I find myself admonishing people not to do a lot of the things we’ve done - get married so young, move to a new city with no jobs and no place to live, get two dogs at the same time - and this is no exception. Quitting our stable, relatively well-paying jobs for no “good” reason, within days of eachother has been one of our bolder, crazier decisions. Yet as with most of these types of decisions we’ve made, it continues to work out in ways I don’t expect, ways that are happily surprising (and not-so-happily surprising, to be fair). I’m not sure I’d do anything differently. … Well, other than give ourselves a bit of a safety net by staggering our timing by more than a few days.
So what the hell were we thinking?
Ryan had long wanted to go into business for himself and saw consulting as a stepping stone. I think it was when he realized that he was making almost as much from consulting gigs on the side as he was from his day job that he decided to go that route. You’d have to ask him about the specifics.
As for me, I NEVER imagined that self-employment would be a part of my journey. When I started out in TV, I planned to end up producing a talk show - something I still wouldn’t be opposed to - but the path I was on didn’t appear to be leading in that direction. There are a lot of concrete reasons why I ended up giving my office job the axe when I did - many of which have to do with impatience, and not all were wise or rational - but I remember the exact, distinct moment when I made my decision. I had flown out to my parents (who were then on the east coast) for the weekend. I was taking a red eye back on a Monday morning to be back in time for work and it hit me - I was rushing back to a job I didn’t love (had I loved it, I bet things would’ve been different), away from a family I DID love, who I wanted to spend more time with.
Although the road of self-employment has been rocky at times, even disheartening and confusing, I have to say I’ve never lost sight of that epiphany. It’s why I purposely schedule mid-day lunches with friends, why I try to travel as much as I can, why I walk the dogs with Ryan in the afternoon (well, sometimes), why I work in the backyard when it’s sunny, why I spend the day at the beach with my mom.
I’ll be honest: for all the “pros” of the lifestyle I’ve chosen, I’m still not sure I want to do this forever. I have mixed emotions about my work a lot of the time. I enjoy it, but I’m not sure it’s my life’s work, my purpose. Until I find it, though, I’m happy with being able to structure life on my terms, in a way that fits my priorities. When I had my most recent “what to be when I grow up” meltdown, Ryan pointed out that a lot of people spend a lot of their lives trying to get to where I am - the fact that I’ve already gotten there and decided I want more out of life shouldn’t be a bad thing. He’s right I suppose, and echoes the sentiments of one of his business heroes Paul Graham:
Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it’s rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you’ll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you’re in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you’re practically there.
I guess I’m in the home stretch.
July 30 2010 09:00 am | career