Today, January 4th, 2022, I turned in my resignation at FSU.
There is a long story behind this decision, possibly only interesting to myself. I’ll post that some other time, as documentation if nothing else.
Right now, though, I want to mark this moment because it is both a long time coming and also a complete surprise.
I have to admit that my job at FSU has, on the whole, been a decent one. I got health insurance and a retirement fund and an office and that holy grail of a professional “careerist” position: business cards.
There are significant ways in which my landing that job was the result of a few bad decisions, though, and now here I am, eight years later and…well, it’s just not the place I ever wanted to be.
Five years ago, I did not want to still be in this job five years later. In fact when I took this job in 2013, it was nearly under duress; they needed the position filled asap, and I needed a steady income ASAP. I told the director at the time that I planned to be there for only three years.
That was eight years ago.
Which is why I say resigning comes as a complete surprise to me despite having planned for it since October and fully committed to it at the end of November: I finally, finally did what I’ve been dreaming of doing for the past five+ years.
It became time for me to either take this important step, or simply withdraw and stop trying, maybe just get a better job somewhere else. Keep to the “safe” career path. Do the “correct” thing. Focus on a job I never wanted and am not invested in.
What made it possible for me to take this step now was a realization I had in that liminal “undecided zone” between late September and the Thanksgiving holiday in November, which was that I have actually spent the last five years laying the groundwork necessary for me to do this.
I’ve put together websites and online course ideas, written copy and deleted copy, tried out different platforms and concepts, written and published books on my own. I could not possibly be in the position I am to relaunch my career as an author and run a business selling online courses in 2022 if I had not spent those years basically working a part time job for myself creating the foundation for what I’m doing now.
That realization hit me like a thunder clap. I saw for the first time past my frustrations and disappointments to see that everything I felt so dismayed by was actually a crucial part of getting me to this point, here and now.
I’m as ready as I am ever going to be.
As my therapist said when I asked her if my logic was sound or if I was just being rash: “You’ve been on this path for five years now, and if you don’t take this opportunity we will be spending a lot of time for the next five years talking about your regrets.”
(Yeah, my therapist is awesome.)
I want to change who I am in this world, not necessarily who I am as a person, yet the irony is that it is impossible to change how you exist without fundamentally changing who you are and, most importantly, what you do. I have to embrace the idea of change and let it happen. I have historically not been good at that, but on the other hand, five years ago as I desperately looked for an escape route out of a job I did not find any satisfaction in, I was slowly building my new life piece by piece.
Today I turned in my resignation and set a date for my final day in this office.
Today I’m not worried about five years ago or five years from now. Instead I’m asking: What difference can a year make?
Keely wants to know. 🙂
