The first time we met she said: “I hate my job. You wouldn’t believe the shit that goes down where I work.” She works in finance, “so actually, I probably would believe all the shit that goes down,” I responded. But for five more years she holds on to the job until one day, over lunch, she happily announces:
“I quit!”
“Finally!” I think. And “Well done!” I speak.
And it is well done – because we’ve all watched from the sidelines while the job has made her more and more unhappy and caused her more and more distress; and we all knew, that this wasn’t the job that would fulfill her and that she was capable of so much more; and we all recognized that quitting would eventually be the only option.
“What are you going to do next?” someone asks.
“I don’t know yet. I’ve simply quit – without a plan.”
“That’s perfect,” they say. “That’s exactly what you needed to do.”
But it’s not easy. On the day she quits, they come to her with a new offer – and it puts doubts in her mind. Then, the next day they come to her with an even better offer – but by now she’s reminded herself that there is no offer in the world that can make up for what the company has done over the past years, and she digs in her feet stubbornly. “This is the new way,” she says to herself.
The weeks pass and she puts emotional distance between herself and her job. The end of her notice period approaches – and she still doesn’t have a plan; but she is at peace because she’s learned that sometimes, not having a plan is the plan.
She takes the time, to sit and to reflect; she takes the time to be bored; and she takes the time to just do nothing. Some days it’s easy. And on some days, it’s hard – because, on those days, she misses the financial security or the mechanical purpose of simply getting up to go every day.
And then something extraordinary happens.
In her state of boredom – in her state of planlessness – the World begins to unfold.
New ideas enter her head; her vision expands, and suddenly, she sees beyond the tunnel that has confined her for so long. She awakens and realizes that she needn’t limit herself to the familiar, well-trodden, corporate path that is so often superimposed over our existence – unless she decides to; she can, in fact, be who she wants to be and do what she is good at. All it requires is a little bit of courage, a little bit of confidence, and the willingness to experiment with things that perhaps she wouldn’t have experimented with before. And a lot of hard work.
The universe begins to play into her hands.
And so, she storms ahead, with courage and conviction.
She breaks out of her cocoon, and she is transformed: Not into a butterfly, but into a beautiful, fierce, flaming dragoness.
She spreads her wings, and flies.
THE END
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