The Five Stages of Quitting Your Job

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Now comes the super-secret sixth phase: soul-crushing fear. See, I've decided to temporarily forgo life in management track corporate America. I've quit my super career chick job with the suits, the giant keyring, and the door that closes. I'm going back to temping, in hopes of landing a decent secretarial post somewhere. This way I can try out different jobs and companies before I sign on long-term. I have one week left at my current job.

I realized I'd been using my job as something to hide behind. If I was really stressed out and came home dog tired, then I couldn't write, couldn't think, and couldn't deal with how completely loopy the last year has been. I could instead obsess about work. I've been told at least 100 times to write a book, and I never got up the nerve to do it. I never even got up the nerve to say I was even considering it. I don't know if it will ever really happen, but it definitely won't with the way my life is currently set up. If you can't get there from here, then it's time to change course.

I have no real responsibilities. I don't have a spouse, a mortgage, a car payment, or kids, just one very demanding houseplant. So if I'm going to take risks, now is the time to do it. Unfortunately, what with being 30 years old and all, I'm old enough to know exactly what it is I'm doing. Hence the soul-crushing fear.

So, yeah, eeeeeeek. But I'm happy. Scared, sure, but all that courage I've had to build up over the last year has to pay off sometime. At least that's what I'll tell myself as my bank account gets shot to hell.

Happiness is a choice, and sometimes it's the hardest choice that brings the most happiness.