Don't Leave Your Corporate Job

Don't leave your artificially concocted identity. Don't step out of the comfort of believing that someone else knows EXACTLY who you should be and what you should be doing. Don't defy the heartless, soul less perpetrators of the myth of your existence and limited usefulness as a cog in a money-making juggernaut.

If you leave, you'll be left standing alone wondering who you are and where you are supposed to go. You'll be left with fragmented memories of who you thought you were as a child and a teenager. You'll suddenly realize, to your terror, that your identity has not been authored by you, but by the HR department, your boss, his boss and the CEO.

And I don't even watch TV. I can't imagine people that step away from their television sets for a day. They must have withdrawal symptoms from not knowing exactly how they are supposed to act, what they are supposed to say in a theatrical mockery of life. When I see people interacting in social settings, I notice everyone plays a part, assumes a role, and we all pretend to be someone we are not. We are full of narratives in our head about who we are supposed to be, who we desire to be, but in fact ARE NOT anything like we imagine.

How would a bee feel if he ran away from his hive, in defiance. Where does he go now? What does he do? What is his purpose? Does he even have one outside of the hive?

I am reminded of 'Red' from the Shawshank Redemption after he was released from prison on parole. First he couldn't believe it.
Second he was happy.
Third - he didn't know what to do with himself. He was bored. He was lonely. He needed permission to go to the bathroom. He needed someone to tell him why he was there at all.

I've gone through exactly the same three steps above. Some mornings I wake up in disbelief that I'm no longer in the monstrous hell that was my job. No more public humiliations. No more 80 hour weeks. No more starving till 9:00p.m in the office alone, occasionally rejoicing if I found a granola bar. No more dark empty offices with just my area lit up - night after night after night after night after night after night after night....

No more meetings with zero time to prepare. No more workplace bully who made my life a living nightmare. No more verbal abuse from the supervisor. No more unreachable deadline piled above another unreachable deadline. No more lying managers. No more.

I am relieved. I am happy. I am feeling free.

But I am feeling lost. So terribly lost.

The Only Way to Know What You Want To Do With Your Life...

...Is to make mistakes

Not the answer I wanted to give nor the answer you want to hear. But you know it to be true. It's the only answer that makes sense. It's the simplest lesson in life, probably.

Try out a few things in life, and find out which ones you like, which ones you can live with, and which ones you absolutely cannot stand.

The reasons for your choices really don't matter. All that matters is where you are right now. 

I don't mind hard work, probably because it keeps me engaged. But I do mind other people speaking for my time after I've made my preferences clear. While clearly being told that I wasn't expected to work more than 40 hours, the project budget was designed for me to work 80 hours a week while getting paid for 40.

I do mind sucking up to people with the expectation to climb the corporate ladder. I do mind acting foolish and subservient to people of questionable respectability. It's not something I enjoy doing and it's something I laugh at when I see others doing it. And therefore, I will never climb that corporate ladder. I saw the results of this first hand. Even though I was on first name basis with the VPs of the company and had frequent conversations about projects and the direction the company was taking, I didn't call them over for supper or compliment them on meaningless rewards they didn't deserve. So my coworker who did the latter got promoted. I was happy for him. Because whatever it is that got you promoted, is what you'll be expected to do more of. If you get promoted for licking stamps, you'll get to lick more stamps. If you get promoted to subservience, you'll be expected to be even more subservient.

I enjoy learning. I found that out when I was enjoying learning things that didn't particularly tickle my fancy. But my mind was growing and that felt good. 

I enjoy interacting with people. When I was doing site inspections in Fort McMurray, I enjoyed interacting with the electricians and journeymen. At the office, I enjoyed interacting with everyone. In my professional societies, I enjoy interacting with my fellow learned society members. I enjoy interacting with people I like and don't particularly like. The interaction is enjoyable. The constant verbal and intellectual gymnastics is thoroughly fun.

But I wouldn't have discovered any of these things if I had been surfing the net. I only found out because I went out there and tried out something. I tried out something extremely challenging. And it just turned out that I didn't like certain key aspects of it. But it still pushed me into a corner - a good corner - a corner of self-discovery.

And maybe that's the source of my anger...

This Self Discovery also Shattered my Self-Image. 

And that has made me feel rudderless. All this time I had clear direction on my path because I was pursuing the fulfillment of that imaginary person in my head that I thought was me. I have to face the fact that the imaginary person in my head is not the real me. And I have no more direction.

I had imagined myself to be someone who would enjoy being an engineer. I am not that person. I had imagined to be someone who would roll around in my money and derive a huge sense of identity from it. I didn't. I had imagined myself being someone who would enjoy telling a bunch of people what to do and how to do it. I don't. I had imagined myself being someone who would brag to others about my accomplishments. I didn't. I don't. I had imagined myself wanting a big house, a fancy car, and a collector of something expensive. I'm none of these things.

I hadn't imagined how much I needed to learn. I hadn't imagined how horrible I would feel for being manipulated. I hadn't imagined how much I would detest verbal abuse. I hadn't imagined how much I would dislike the pretentiousness of corporate culture. I hadn't imagined how I would feel working on something that I wasn't really interested in. I hadn't imagined what it's like to be working on something that is of little or no significance to me. I hadn't imagined how horrible it would feel to be judged by people in management positions that don't know what they are doing while I am a professional who does know what I'm doing. I didn't realize how small I would feel when I would be turned down for a vacation request during a slow period when I had no work. I did not know these things. BUT I wouldn't have known these things until I walked down that path.

You really can't think your way out of situations. You have to experience it first hand.

Only after my grandfather took me to a cafe did I realize how much I loved coffee. Only when I went on my Europe tour did I realize how hooked I am on traveling. Only when I traveled through India and overheard an Israeli traveler describe personal surrender during travel, did I latch on to the concept and tried it out for myself.

We cannot expect great truths to unfold before us if we're going to be armchair philosophers. We have to interact with the world. For better or for worse.