What made you leave your regular job?
In the recent past, I’ve met many people who have asked me “What made you leave your regular job?”. When I left the job, it was only because of some sort of uneasiness and a feeling that it was not right. I never was able to identify the root cause back then. That was 1.5 years back. Now, since the work I do feels so perfectly right, I can identify the exact reason for the discomfort back then.
When working for someone else,
- I could never dream of building an electric car even though I used to work on software for diesel cars. Now I can always dream.
- I could never experiment on a technology even though I implemented code for someone else’s experiment. Now I experiment often.
- I never saw the value of money even though I saw pretty good money. I know now, money is “value”.
- I could never meet these interesting people with world changing ideas that I meet now.
- I never could have been the change I wanted to be.
Take a sample day. I plant a couple of trees, write a blog, do some technology research, network with business people, prepare presentations, teach about climate change at schools and also play Mafia wars on facebook. This is exactly where I wanted to be. And a regular job was no place for me.
To be a dreamer, to be an experimentalist, to be an explorer, to create change, the only way is coming out of the security net of a regular job. And I’m glad I did it.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:01 AM
The way I see it and I understand the same from this post “a regular job is not for people who can do a lot of things and be good at most of it”.Though one can keep changing the “regular” jobs, there is still the uneasiness of not doing much between those changes. Completely agree with you that venturing out on your own is a lot more satisfying.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:25 AM
I like your last bullet.
Your views are true to an extent. To an extent because if you dream of something totally different than what you are doing right now, then a job change is imperative. I know a friend who is working on an idea which uses web 2.0. For him, working in IT is serving him good.
Mostly, people take more time than what you have taken to figure out what they want to do. That is why the job security, I guess. And by the time people decide what they want to do, its too late and they are stuck in that “regular job” for the rest of their life!!! Shoot!!!
You have taken a brave step, no doubt, kudos to that. Good luck, bro.
August 12th, 2009 at 9:30 AM
Very well put.
I could identify with most of it. In fact when I wanted to quit, My then boss asked why? I said “honestly, I feel like a whore, I am in it only for the money.” Thats precisely how I felt at that point of time.
All of us play various roles to make money and make a living.. so why not play the role your enjoy and also have a ball at it.
Great going brother!! Interesting time ahead
August 16th, 2009 at 12:53 PM
Ha Ha Ha…:)
I really Agree with it….In regular jobs someone will assign some task to us , we were in hurry to finish it up…we dont find the time to do our own things except waiting for weekends, eagar to read some other extra stuffs which were gathered through out that week…:)
Nice time you are having then….Enjoy haan….:)
August 17th, 2009 at 9:37 PM
@suraj: Not just people who can do a lot of things (some people do a lot in a regular job too). People who have that itch to do more than what they are doing right now, even though they are already doing a lot right now. People who dream of reaching the stars.
@Yash: That is a right point. Yesterday, in fact Sanjay Anandram of Jumpstartup ventures said, “Entrepreneurs are just a statistical fact. 1-2% of the total population think they want to do something else. Others find satisfaction in what they do. Both are perfectly OK”
@Vinay: Yeah, right. Entrepreneurs just give more importance to passion as compared to money and security, thats it. Money, I feel would naturally come.
@ashwini: Sure, being an entrepreneur is a great time