I quit.
Wednesday is my last day in the office. I quit. It's not quite like quitting earlier. I quit often and I mostly quit when I felt my job was done. In this case my job is done as well. What makes it different is that I don't want to work anymore. That's a bit off, I want to work, I love to work. But I decided to take a significant break and keep it absolutely open what's next. I don't have another job lined up. I'm allowing myself to go on a little adventure. And I'm curious where I end up.
Last year it dawned on me. That I can't continue living on how I live. Every day looked the same. I woke up, I got a coffee, I went to work, I went home, I went to bed. And while the work was challenging it didn't make me content, it wasn't something that I would want to keep doing and doing. In peak times I had 14 meetings, often interviews. I was no longer doing what I actually love. Building, designing, creating. Instead I was interviewing, hiring, managing and worst case firing. I'm very proud of the team that I helped building, the team I worked with and thankful for the opportunity I got. Every single person is great, and we had lots of fun. But I can’t spend the majority of my life inside, in front of a computer.
It sort of started when we had sessions with a leadership coach. He asked us to imagine us at the end of the year. I imagined myself outside, on some sort of mountain, jeans and white shirt, with a big and confident smile on my face. No one else there, no computers, no big organisation. That was the first moment where I thought that I might not get towards this goal when I stay. I could not leave yet, I hardly had any savings and my job was not done yet. So I started saving.
Now I saved a bit, and I'm ready to start my journey. I have absolutely no idea where this is going to leave me, but I'm ready for adventure.
I do have a rough plan for the next few months. The first month I'll be staying in my hometown. Next stop is Rome via Bologna and Florence, my goal is to learn some Italian. If all goes really well I'm going to do an exciting internship in Berlin for the winter months (more on that if I get it). And then the big one: biking through Europe, as long as I want to. I'm going to start on the 23rd of February next year in Sicily, plan to bike up to Scotland and find my way to Portugal. Along the way I hope to visit farms, restaurants, projects - if anybody has contacts, please ping me.
And that's that. I keep you posted.
p. s. everybody whoever worked with me knows that I’m loving newsletters. That’s why I got myself now one as well. Format will change, and I’m going to send it out weekly or bi-weekly. My blog is in the making as well, but not done yet: http://www.staunchy.com/