Quitting without a plan
Over the last decade — I have gone through 5 jobs and founded 2 failed ventures. But quitting my latest job today feels different. This time, I have set off on an experiment of ‘total surrender’.
Most companies that I worked at, had a fairly traditional capitalistic setup — with its reward mechanisms, hikes, promotions, milestones — but I felt like I got too used to the motions. The half-yearly unease around promotion cycles, the release of all the stress with Friday beers, the darkness of Monday blues — it felt like everyone else and I were behaving and feeling the exact same way, following the exact same template.
Deep down, I started feeling a hollowness, a deafness. A lack of any sound from my sub-conscious because I had stopped listening to it long ago, choosing to go with the motions of the machine instead.
15 months ago, as I battled past a humbling anxiety disorder and went through some personal upheavals, I started doing therapy and meditation. A Vipassana course in 2021 Jan proved instrumental in refining my meditation practice. And as I now start tuning in to my subconscious and intuition, I am now guided in directions that make … ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!
2 months ago the voice told me to quit my job. The voice’s command didn’t have the familiar backing of rationale and logic, but it carried a strange feeling of ‘rightness’! And now the voice tells me to randomly research on topics related to cooking, oceans and microscopes. It tells me to draw myself a warm bath at 4pm. It asks me to go for a swim at 5am, and binge on Rick and Morty right after that. It tells me to read books unrelated to each other — running, philosophy, unsolved murders and food. I am using the voice to choose what clothes to buy, what pizza to order and what to do after quitting my job.
As of now I have applied to a few coral conservation programs, and doing a popup restaurant with friends in a week. I will continue to surrender to this strange voice and now serve myself a lava cake (seriously wtf!). Let’s see where it takes me.
