My Second Act

2 Months ago, I put a period in my current career. Whenever I pack up at a job, I always asked myself, “Is there anything more to learn?’

If I can’t find an answer, I always quit my job without hesitation. But this time, I doubted my decision.

“There probably might be more to learn? I couldn’t be sure there is nothing to learn.”

My department is a hot field to work in because marketing is always hot. My salary was not bad, the position was also not bad. Since I was accustomed to my work, it was not hard to adjust myself to the job. People valued my ability and there was no enemy to defeat around me. It seemed quite safe to continue my job. But I couldn’t.

Why couldn’t I continue my job?

First, I couldn’t agree with my company’s value. To win the market, they need to have a monopoly on the market. To have a monopoly, they have to squeeze out the maximum benefit from all departments. We call it the rule of the game. But I wondered, is it right?

“Why do we have to continue pushing the envelope? Why do we so work hard, for what?” I couldn’t answer the question with confidence.

“Is it right to work for a company whose values don’t belong to mine?” I couldn’t stop questioning.

“Everybody does.”

One voice inside of me protested.

“For someone, I have to care for, for paying my credit card, of course for my later years!”

Another voice inside of me asked me again.

“What about your now? Why are you throwing away your now?”

Two voices quarreled each other. At last, one of them began to strike.

I couldn’t digest well, sleep well, speak well. I surrendered to myself, eventually. Handing in my resignation, my body condition got back up again like it was just a lie.

Of course, it took quite a lot of time to recover.

While I was struggling with myself, I found it important to keep a couple of things in mind.

First, me, myself is the precious one that I have to care for the most.

People often forget the value of ourselves. And then throw ourselves to the rubbish.

Alain de Botton said people who are preoccupied with money and status destroy their abilities to be able to think about what they really should choose for themselves.

So I decided I won’t waste my life for worthless things. I am not gonna exchange my value for the valueless.

Because my life in the here and now is precious above all.

When I devote myself to the value I belong to, I won’t regret anything I am dedicated about.

Second, the courage to recognize that I am nothing is the true starting point to begin again.

My role was answering the question for a long time. So it was hard to admit that I don’t know. I had to find an answer to the question quickly. So it was the easiest way to cover all the books, data, articles etc related to the question. However, true knowledge was not in the book but in my body. It’s not my brain but the body that makes me step forward.

I’m going to only say I know about the things I truly know, and not going to say I know about the things I don’t know.

I am sick of thinking others thoughts are like my own.

To be told, to read cannot be mine if we don’t internalize it in our whole body.

So we have to put our body in new situations and immerse ourselves in doing, not thinking.

In that time, we should keep it in mind.

• Don’t blame yourself for not working hard.
• Just trust yourself like your mom would.
• We need to embrace ourselves as a present from the universe.

After all, the unconsciousness does work. Your body would know where to go already.

Please let him/her be free. Don’t put him/her in your thinking prison.

Thoughts and thinking come and go, but the child self, the true self, is there and will be there as long as our breath is. To enjoy it. to appreciate it.