About Quitting

2" By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." Genesis 2:2-3(NIV)

10 “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.” Exodus 23:10-11 (NIV)

Recently I quit my job. It was interesting to see my coworkers’ reactions. Every one of them secretly wished they could do what I am doing, just stop and not work for a while. 

My two favorite reactions were these; one actor openly admitted he was jealous and wanted to do what I am doing and the other went straight into telling me, “it’s a hard job marked out there…” I highlight these because the honest one was a bit of fresh air, no digging through subtext, but the worried one was more typical of how people respond to hearing that I don’t have a project lined up to jump into.

What the phrase, “it’s a hard job market,” really says is that, I should stay in this situation because it is a sure thing. What it does not take into account is my real situation. What the person who said this does not know is that staying, at this point, is way more dangerous than going. Yes, I work hard and I do a good job but the parade of crises I have been managing for the past two and a half years has left me depleted. There has been no recovery time. 

As a fighter I know that training should be challenging and sometimes hard but that rest and recovery are equally important to achieving the lasting goal of success. In work and personal relationships the same is true; there must be times of renewal. Without renewal I am dangerous because now I cannot be present to the circumstances that are actually in front me. I am too busy nursing old wounds and too distressed to properly care for the new ones. I am also unable to care for anyone else’s wounds and am more likely to lash out and wound others both emotionally and physically (you don’t know how many times I nearly punch someone in the gut).

In the environment that we were working in this was not a good position to be in. 

I have learned a lot about myself through all of this, that I need a good network of friends who can support me through these hard times, that sometimes it is better to be broke than broken, and that we all put way too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect. I have become very pragmatic, or cynical (I’m not sure), about perfection. I realized within the last few months that, though I am not living my ideal life I am living someone’s ideal life, and within the past year or so I have come to believe that we humans have no clue what perfection really looks like. We actually may be living perfectly already but unaware of it because part of what it means to be a perfect human is to be flawed, or at least unique, which oddly we do not like right now.

This does not mean we stop trying to mature and become “better” people. It just means that it is ok to own your mistakes and immature habits as your starting point and to not put another layer of pressure on yourself because you are not what you want to be yet. All this beauty and maturity of character takes time and pain to develop. But there must be rest.

See, even God rested and that is a lesson to us. We were created to need rest so that there would be an opportunity for our community to carry us. On my own I am insecure and very weak but if my friend and family carry me I am powerful. With this support I can and have survived two and a half years of difficult work. With this same support I can do something new and equally good. The quest now is for healing and sustainability.

I do not know what that will look like yet. I do know that it will require a shift in professional focus. I cannot do what I have been doing for the past six years. It just took too much out of me. 

I have a desire to see people understand themselves and to forgive themselves as I have come to forgive myself and am beginning to understand myself. This is the beginning of healing and the true evidence of salvation, because forgiveness is the first step of love, and love is salvation.