Sometimes You Have to Just Walk Away

It happens. You reach a point where you’re either going to break…or you’re going to break something. Guess what? If it’s gotten to that point, just walk away. You might be doing yourself a favor.

I recently walked away from a bad job situation. Worse, I walked away without having a backup plan. Not an easy (or particularly smart) thing to do in this day and age. But, the simple fact was that it was making me sick…literally. Being tall and skinny, I can’t really afford to lose weight, but I’m fairly certain I lost about ten pounds over the last couple of months. That, combined with anxiety attacks, lack of sleep, and a dangerous drop in self-esteem, made me a mess. I had reached my breaking point.
Luckily for me, I seem to have stepped in a big pile of good luck. Not only did I manage to find a new job relatively quickly, but it’s 10 minutes from home and more money. I’m not sure that I deserve that kind of luck, but I’ll take it.

The new job is a return to my comfort zone. I’m back to editing again and it’s amazing how knowing what to do (relatively) makes all the difference in the world. It’s also amazing what an open, receptive, positive atmosphere does. My new position is with an advertising agency and there just seems to be a greater sense of camaraderie and community that was missing from my last post. I realize we’re all just cogs in someone else’s great corporate machine, but there’s a difference between realizing that and feeling that. I know I’m a lemming…just don’t make me feel like I’m running with the crowd and jumping off the cliff every day.

This was a big, bold, and potentially stupid move that worked out. Lucky me. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Sometimes we lock ourselves into a bad situation, whether it’s a job or project or relationship, because we overthink all of the negative aspects of a possible change. We think of everything horrible that could go wrong if we make a move, but meanwhile, we’re slowly killing ourselves by remaining where we are.

Now, you might be saying, “Well, it’s easy to write ‘just walk away’ when you’ve landed on your feet.” And I say, you’re right…it is. But, the truth is, I started writing this post shortly after leaving my old job and well before I had secured a new position. You see, removing myself from the bad situation made me feel immediately better. Yes, doing so introduced a whole new set of challenges, but I no longer felt like I was being pushed to the edge.

Life’s short. Be bold. Take chances. Never regret what you should have done. Walking away doesn’t necessarily mean failure. Sometimes it just is what it is; a change.