During this journey of finding myself, letting go has become a constant theme in my life lately. Instead of trying to fit all of my tales of letting go into one blog post, I will create a series that follows my past, present, and future journeys of releasing things that no longer serve me and being okay with things I can no longer control.
This concept has been a tough pill to swallow, but at the same time, liberating and scary. I’m currently trying to figure out whether I want to quit my second job. I’ve been working two jobs for the past five years, and I’m completely exhausted. For about three of those years, I was working seven days a week. I can’t do it anymore.
Do I need the money? Yes.
Would this change cause me financial hardship? Yes.
If I continue on this path of working six days a week and twelve-hour shifts, what harm could it do?
I haven’t been able to be as creative as I would like. I’m utterly exhausted to the point I can’t even pour into my creative outlets, which is what I want to do for a living. Being creative brings me joy, and I’m currently joyless.
I’m too exhausted to properly work out to take care of my health. I feel like I’m shortening my life by working so hard.
My mental health is consistently declining in an industry where “the customer is always right,” but in reality, a lot of the customers are just assholes. I used to work in retail pre-COVID, and it wasn’t this bad. I’ve worked in five different retail stores in the last five years, and the situation is the same across the board. A lot of people treat customer service workers like they’re beneath them, and the current social climate in this country has made the industry even worse.
By working this much, I’m still living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in a vicious cycle of working just to pay my bills. This is not the life I want to live. If I quit my second job, at least I’ll finally have time to write my TV pilot. I could take care of myself physically and mentally. Hell, I may even be able to add some more years to my life. If I do this, I’ll have to find other ways to earn extra income that won’t require me to work six to seven days a week.
I’m at a point in my life where I really want to pursue my dream career as a screenwriter, and I won’t be able to do that if I don’t take care of myself. We only get one shot at this thing called life. Sometimes you have to take risks to live the life you want.
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