“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“How will you afford to live in NYC?”
“Wow! That’s brave!”
“I wish I could do that…sigh”
“How cool! I hope it works out for you!”
“AMAZING!”
Those were just a few of the comments I got when I announced that I would be leaving my comfortable, well-paid job -with 13 weeks vacation a year- to take the time to explore and decide what the next step was for me.
When my last day of work arrived, and the horizon was fully clear, I stood with all those I had worked with for the past four years since arriving in NYC, and tears started rolling down my cheeks.
It’s always hard to leave a place, a job or a relationship and there is always a feeling of mourning. You know what you leave behind but you have no idea what you are looking towards. Here I was – about to turn 40 with no regular income, leaving a career I had started building when I was 23 and a very vague idea of where I wanted to go. I was terrified, excited, motivated and ready to take on the world!
Today, I want to share with you not all the struggles and difficulties I encountered but instead why it was key for me to let myself have the time to explore, try, choose different paths and educate myself.