Did you quit to follow a passion? r/AskReddit | Reddit Jar

redditors who quit a steady job to follow a passion what's your story what did you leave what did you start and how has it turned out I didn't quit a steady job but I did drop out of school to follow my dreams I finished my freshman year of college and had a moment of inspiration I was going to bicycle across the USA so in the summer of 2010 I biked from Portland to New York City despite an absent cycling partner and having no idea what I was doing on twenty-year-old equipment it was the time of my life in early 2012 I dropped out of school I was a junior I sold my car my drumset and bicycle the cross Europe and across most of the USA again this spring I'm going to bike from Niagara Falls to Anchorage Alaska and live there for a month after that month is up I'll have a one-way ticket to Asia waiting I'm hoping to teach English in India I have a friend who put himself through paramedic and fire school he got a great job making 65k and had the ability to retire comfortably 25 years later five years into it he got bored and decided to chase his dreams it was a huge mistake two years later the company he helped start has failed and he can't find another firefighting job he's spiraled into depression and his life is starting to come apart at the seams his experience only reinforced my belief that you'd do something to pay the bills so you can do something you love you only quit and try to do it full-time until there's no doubt that cashflow is there to support yourself I had a great job doing PR for a library I was making more money than I ever had before and all around loved my job it was a difficult decision but I decided to go travel instead I left my job used all of my savings and moved to Chile I studied at a local university to improve my Spanish and took a few months to backpack through Chile Argentina Peru and Uruguay I'm back in the United States now working the most boring job ever but I wouldn't change a thing on my trip I met some of the greatest people in the world and the whole adventure changed my life terrible I resigned from my last job to pursue a job I actually would enjoy doing for the rest of my life something along the lines of my two greatest passions motoring and cooking I was previously a structural drafter for a big engineering firm and was getting steady work that I was pretty good at fancy clients to name-drop office job plenty of perks busty HR girls yada yada it was very comfortable after leaving I realized how stupid a move it was I had no money to support myself of my girlfriend as I was naive enough to think I would find something I wanted soon the market ATM is tough hiring just doesn't occur around this time and my girlfriend is paying for a lot of my stuff thankfully she's the most amazing woman I've ever met and is very supportive regarding my situation recently less than a week I've picked up a casual position working as a car park attendant I just need the money's the dream will come true soon hopefully kamar and DeMar be slapping a ring on my girl's finger when it does after college I worked at Apple computers headquarters in 2008 when the economy tanked I had to get a job at a deli I worked there for years while I was there I started making these little films with my flip cam then I saved for a $400 Nikon page 500 so I could make a music video for my band it turned out really well so I saved every penny and bought some editing software sunlights and started doing video jobs on the side every morning I would wake up at about 5:00 a.m. and tackle the adobe classroom in a book series Learning After Effects Premiere Photoshop and illustrator then I spent six months saving for a real camera the Canon HfG 10 then right after the new year with a nice portfolio of demo work all done before the Sun came up every day and about $1,000 in the bank I started working on my own production company full-time I started with low-paying jobs but I made sure that every day I was doing something I did a ton of jobs in my first year and got all my bills paid I did weddings birthday parties tons of music videos and corporate spots I even was contracted to work on a few projects for major companies like Chevron and del Monte I was able buy a new camera the Canon 5d Mark III along with some new audio gear I created great relationships with my local can or a rental place where I rent all my big lights and extra gear it's been a year since I quit the deli I didn't make a ton of money but I made enough to pay all my bills get new gear buy my lady a new MacBook and an engagement ring I have a business license and have to pay a ton of taxes but my worst day doing this is still better than my best day at the deli I was a store manager at Gamestop it was terrible I decided I'd rather make games than seldom so I quit with no real plan after about a month of being unemployed I got a customer service job at Blizzard through that job I met Jael and Bracken decided I wanted to do what he did producer now I work at Bioware as a development manager everything went better than expected I've been in IT for 19 years it was really fun in the early and mid 90s before every AOL todd and grandma discovered the interwebs before y2k before idiot managers destroyed the enjoyment of technology I just walked away from a 75 K dollars job that was going nowhere but going well it provided for my lifestyle and involved interesting technologies however the managers were tools and the customers clueless I now live at 9500 feet of elevation at a world-class ski resort I am making $60 a night tending bar and waiting tables I eat and drink extremely well I ski nearly every day the summer mountain biking is world-class yes I am struggling on the financial side however clarity of thought fitness of body and lack of anger and hatred toward my fellow man make up for the moderate income I was struggling with 15 years of wage stagnation simply not worth it I worked at watch over year corporate for three and a half miserable years after the merger with Wells Fargo most of my team left and I was sort of adopted by another manager for HR purposes I kept my own time card and there was really nothing for me to do at work I pretty much was sitting around waiting to be displaced at the same time I was getting my EMT Basic certification well March came around and one day I decided it was just too nice outside to go to work I turned in my two-week notice on a Monday and Wednesday night after EMT class came back to the office packed up my desk slipped notes under the doors of the co-workers I liked and never came back it took two days for anyone to realize I wasn't there I also cashed out the meager amount of dollar sign dollar sign left in my 401 K and took it easy for the next month eventually found a bartending gig which helped make ends meet as public service folks don't make much at all $9 15 / HR fast forward to five years I will graduate from nursing school in May and can't wait to begin my new career yes I've had to take out student loans and work 30 hours a week on top of school to make ends meet but it's been worth it taking charge of my happiness and my future is the most empowering thing I've ever done I helped open a small moment pot restaurant-bar I love them like family however I want to work for myself and contribute to society I can't sit behind a desk for eight hours if I had a million dollars and didn't have to work what would I do that's easy I do yoga all day one of the hardest things was to tell my boss I can't work at night anymore I have yoga teacher training since I'm not going to turn into a guru overnight or over three months I knew my journey would take awhile I've been lucky enough to win myself off the restaurant slowly cutting back on restaurant shifts as my yoga classes begin to fill up it's been hard but the harder I work for myself the more satisfying my life has become I really feel like I'm contributing to society and thus bettering everyone I come in contact with because I'm able to serve them better since I'm happy it's like flying on an airplane put your own mask on before helping others if you try helping other without your own mask on your Jai and then who can help others I like to tell my students make little mistakes this is how we learn no risk nothing gained avoid big mistakes because then you may get hurt but life is not perfect and appreciate what you've learned from your smaller mistakes strife of a balance not perfection closed bracket when I was in high school I was a decent baseball player good enough to get drafted by the Blue Jays despite only playing one game my senior year I made the mistake of turning the contract down to go to school that turned into ten years of bad mistakes last year I was coaching for a semi-pro team that I'd occasionally throw for just for fun I ended up throwing against one of the top teams in the country at our World Series through a gem of a game shutting them out the next day of scout from the Angels calls me over with contract in hand asks my age not realizing I was a coach I told him my a and he snatched the contract out of my hand kinda devastated so I quit my full-time job trained six days a week and I will reach my dream I'm applying to PhD programs in astronomy hopefully one of them will admit me so I can quit my extremely my analyst job and live on the pittance they call a grad stipend for seven years then jockey with hundreds of far more qualified people for postdocs and faculty jobs it's worth the risk the best feeling in the world is the one you get when your clunky home breed data analysis scripts work and you start turning your nice clean data into figures and then you have results with acceptable error bars and it's real and right there and no matter how small or collaborative an effort you have just proven something in all the late nights bad observing weather buggy programs crashed computers unix struggles and frustration are suddenly insignificant because it'll ended with you pushing the boundary of human knowledge outward just a tiny bit I have never felt more purposeful or significant than I did during my very brief career in science I have to get that feeling back I've always wanted to be a writer ever since I was a teenager after graduating college I told music private lessons I taught high school for a year and then I finally worked up a nerve to take on a part-time job and consolidate my bills so that I could really write I've been working on a novel four to one stroke two years while substitute teaching which is the most annoying way to pay your bills ever it's a few months away from being finished so I can't tell you if it was a smart move but I know that I would have been miserable to have never tried the good news is that no matter how shitty or unprofitable the novel might end up being I'll be happy with the final product at the end of the day you have to decide for yourself there are days where I'm honestly terrified about quitting the more accepted path of life I'm uninsured so questions about what I would do if I got sick or if I got in a car wreck keep me awake some nights but most days I feel genuine purpose and a deep sense of pride and happiness and what I've chosen to do with my life that's what courage Willie is being afraid suffering through self-doubt but doing what you believe is right there's not a single person on this planet who can look into your soul and tell you what to do with yourself which can be a scary or a reassuring feeling just remember that your life only belongs to you I quit my job working for a local trash company because my boss who was also my friend was a complete f-ck and made me hate my life treated me like absolute sheet making it hard to even get out if bed to go to work one day I snapped gave an ultimate f ck you speech and told them to eat my shortly after a good friend of mine approached me to run the business end of what we are calling nether done garage it's basically perfect working with people who have a passion for automobiles creating having a say in how things are done I make considerably less but I'm glad I quit the money will come hopefully if not I'm happy this post is terrible post it from my phone met I was working as an office clerk for a small company for two and a half years they were really good to me there and if I wanted to I could have made a career out of it but I'd always dreamed about being a scientist so I quit my job and traveled halfway across the continent to attend graduate school in archaeology unlike chemistry or engineering archeology jobs pay like sheet and are hard to come by it's a pure a search filled with little commercial application I'm now thirty dollars came debt oh the university $8 K that I don't have have several incomplete classes hanging over my head one more class to take and a thesis to write I'm currently working retail to make ends meet and I am very lonely I'm hoping to finish by the end of the summer of 2013 but it's going to be tough I'm not sure I'd made the same decision to return to school again if I was allowed to go back my other half and I left two decent 9-5 jobs that ended up concealing between fifty eighty hours per week both of us started freelancing and ended up in Central America working 25 hours a week with remote jobs it's been over a year now and although it's not without the occasional bump in the road we don't regret a thing thanks to a low cost of living and even though were making a fraction of our salaries our bank accounts never looked better we're much healthier and we've never been happier I've always been quite good at web design I wanted to start a website during my high school years and use it as sort of a financial crutch for my college savings I really wanted to start a site similar to the Art of Manliness keep in mind this was in 2007 long before that site opened and had my site masculine style opened for close to a year before Art of Manliness opened in January of 2008 long story short they gained higher traffic than my site SAP most of my readers and I shut down don't get me wrong I love the site and the guys who write it but it sucks when your business gets crushed by someone who was later to the game a lot of my same content was written before they had it on their site not the exact same content but similar content my wife and I were married in the summer of 2011 and we're both from Ohio she took a job in Atlanta and one of the premiere high schools in the area I followed her down and eventually found a great job working for CNN we had our first child last spring wasn't necessarily the plan but I loved him to death made the executive decision to move back closer to home despite these two outstanding careers to be closer to his grandparents since he's the first grandson on both sides I'm nowhere near the big time now just working I tea at a local rehab clinic my wife is currently still unemployed we moved in August as we wait for schools to start posting jobs in her field Latin definitely don't have any regrets as I'm sure everything will work out in the end despite the one small income at the moment but it's hard to put a price on our families spending more time with our son not well so far I had an OK printing job I actually would be excited about work sometimes it was retail but I still did production so it wasn't total customer service the days when I knew I had work to do were kind of the best I could tell customers I was busy for the most part I did not like it though I was trying to move up within the company as that seemed like a path for me I was considered for two different positions and got neither and that's when I got pretty fed up and left I thought to myself why did I care so much about getting either of those promotions I told myself I wanted them but I really didn't I told myself to pursue something where I can be creative writing comedy art act now I have to deal with motivating me who is kind of a in that department overcoming my social anxiety which I'm terrible at also the fact I have no money and I'm unemployed and living with my parents I've been trying to get another job some crappy retail one I feel like I have nothing to show for it no library of work to be proud of I could have had a job I was unhappy with and had some more money instead I largely have nothing and I'm still unhappy I haven't made the jump yet but working towards it I was one of those kids in high school who never really knew what he wanted to do I went to university switched majors four times and ended up in history which I did enjoy but I new employment opportunities would be a scarce I worked part time for government in an unrelated field and worked hard to get in full-time after I graduated I at least wanted to get a steady job so I wouldn't have to rely on anyone I of course have been hating every David since I have been full-time but after a few years reflecting on my case and a mental breakdown I figured out how I wanted to go into nursing or another health-related career I am currently finishing high school science credits I went the arts way in HS didn't feel like homework while working full time we are expecting a baby - very soon my cell and this has also contributed to my motivation once the fancy finishes uni it will be my turn to go back to school some people have questioned my choice others have been very supportive but I finally feel like I'm working towards my goals and general happiness my advice find what makes you happy what skills you have that you are already Goodlett and work towards your dream in my 20s I used to work at a book store making slightly more than minimum wage it wasn't a lot of responsibility and the ability to date customers was a plus also made a lot of close friends there after finishing school in an unrelated major I decided to give animation one more try oh I drew all the time but never found steady work in the field which is why I resigned myself to working in that bookstore until a new management became too strict for my liking when giving it a go this time I only took on clients who were willing to pay at least the CA minimum wage soon it became a full-time job and I increased my rates every time I felt I was working too hard now I draw exclusively for a single client and work as a middleman connecting other clients with other artists I earn more than the store manager at that bookstore future goals include finding ways to earn income from my own cartoon and game ideas and world domination I left school and went straight into a career in IT I was always good with computers for the next 10 years I climbed up the ladder till I was running a full school network by myself which was fun and all but the pleasure in what I was doing was fading fast one day I knew it's now or never time to change or decide to stick it out for good after some soul searching and looking Tom my options I decided to lay it all on the line and change my career I signed up for a short crash course in VFX did the course and was lucky enough to get my course costs funded one year later I was qualified and had one studio placement under my belt three years on I'm working at the biggest VFX studio in London working on some amazing films I say make an informed choice being able to live with the success and the punishments I love what I do now and that pleasure and happiness has carried over into my personal life but it has also left me with a bit of debt and a drop in my salary since I started a new career regrets none I worked for an ass of a boss who demanded I write down everything he said because he hated sending emails my last day of work I was editing a commercial for a local company and asked him for a creative spec what font what colors to use pacing and fill et Cie and he blows up on me telling me that I just need to do it and I don't need no damn creative spec sheet in return I tried to explain that there is a certain way of going about creative work so everybody is on the same page and things get done right the first time he replies with telling me that video editors are a dime a dozen and if I didn't like the way he does things then he will find somebody who will I quit and took his top for clients with me because they knew all I did 99% of the work now I work freelance and I work from home on a super-fast amazing computer that I have been able to afford from my freelance work I had a very nice high-paying consulting job out of college was flying across the country and getting steak dinners at 5-star restaurants paid for totally hated it after a month after three months I quit I really wanted to create my own business and be my own man after two very tough years in which I lost friends and a serious girlfriend had to move back in with my folks for a while and suffered depression for quite a bit of it I am proud to say last month my business made $10 K in profit and is expected to surpass that this month and I have a much nicer apartment and a better girlfriend wasn't easy wasn't fun but I got lucky and never gave up I credit a lot of exercise to my success I was a routine scientist after finishing University whose job was run tests on a product and basically give lip service to the customers saying how great their product was passing all the tests if we ever had a normal assaults we were doing it wrong my dream job has always been to design affordable medicines for developing countries and fly them around the place would much prefer to physically see the patients receive them instead of trusting the government's to send them around to do this I need a PhD minimum I got an offer to do a master's course which is effectively a first year PhD and if I do well enough a transfer is possible I dropped my job I dropped my life I had over there and moved back to near a home currently I'm living a limited cash and recently given the go-ahead for a PhD now me and my supervisor are battling it out to find funding to make it all possible a bit different I quit a short thing in school to do something nobody believed in before I was in school to do an English degree to become a teacher I had a scholarship there it was really easy for me sure bet my parents wanted me to do it my teachers wanted me to do it I did really well but I said this I love music I decided to switch into a music degree instead everyone told me not to they said I wasn't good enough I had pretty much zero support except for my best friend after a year in music I got two scholarships one of the top in my class I'm not finishing off my degree I'm still top of my I love everything I do I love the people the profs my coursework I'm well set up for a job teaching band my dream job of everything I ever did in life following my passion was the smartest decision though I always say follow your passion smartly if you drop out to go to a bars in a rock band chances are you won't make it follow your dreams so that it has structure enroll in music school get a degree you can make money as a studio musician with that or teach private lessons or become a band teacher or audition for orchestras etc too many people don't realize you still have to structure your goals I know it's not quite what you're looking for but I'll be leaving the big city and moving in with my parents for 3-6 months so that I can properly set up my portfolio do a few quick photography jobs and budget out a feature film I'm 26 and work nearly full-time which kills my enthusiasm to shoot shorts even though I'm shooting one today but I write constantly the hard part right now is making a living as filmmaking is about as far from a sure thing as you can get regardless it's all I want to do so I'll settle for being a failure a few months to hopefully succeed after my dad worked at UPS for 15 years he was a supervisor for most of those years the pay was nice and the benefits were even better my dad was miserable and had blood pressure issues before he went to work for UPS he had gone to California and studied to be a jeweler and gemologist my grandpa was a jeweler and owned his own store my dad wanted to do jewelry work and eventually take over my grandpa's store but when he finished school ajar there were too many jewelry stores in our small town on my parents 20th wedding anniversary he told us he had quit ups and was going to open a store it was a little scary and a little rough at first but now their store is amazing and does really well we reopened it as the same name as my grandpa's and when we set up the phones we were able to get the same number as my grandpa's store their store does so well that my dad goes to Antwerp Belgium at least once a year to pick out diamonds straight from the cutters so much better than ups : close bracket I'm actually just about to start this process so I'm glad to see this thread for some advice I've had my real job in banking and finance for the better part of the past five years I've played music since I was five years old and I've been a guitarist for the last ten years music has always been my passion and the love of my life but I've always grown up hearing how it is typically a dead-end career and being discouraged nonetheless I've still continued my practice and love of guitar while working in finance never expecting to make a career from it after playing with anyone and everyone I've come across I just became a member of a very well-established band four months ago we've been playing about six shows a month for the last three months since I've been in the band all while I balanced my life with a 9-5 job we are finalizing plans for a string of three tours all across the US starting in six weeks I'll leave my soul-sucking finance job that pays me well in a month for my number one passion in life music so many feelings are going through my mind at the moment mostly of excitement and positive energy but also the uncertainty and fear that goes with dropping your comfortable daily routine for something new any words of wisdom advice word it don't know if this counts I didn't have a cushy 9-5 office job or anything but I had steady income and likely job security only problem was I was absolutely miserable my wife was continuing with her school getting an MSC and later PhD and I had nothing past high school but had a real passion for archaeology and religious studies I don't have a success story yet but I will graduate in six months and start my own path down the Graduate School Road while my wife will be looking work I've never been happier despite the fact that there is little money for niceties we are certainly not starving but we cannot even think about children buying a house car etc dot I quit my job as a setup engineer in a precision manufacturing plant not a super cushy job but 50k year and comfortable I didn't mind the people I worked with but I didn't like the work at all I really wanted to become a trader on Wall Street or at the time that's what I thought so I quit my job and moved to California SF and started looking for a job in finance so I could make this thing happen turns out I went through several internships got fired twice and lost a ton of money trading my own account to gain experience but today at 25 years old I am a junior portfolio manager at a hedge fund in SF and I love my job for me it's the constant excitement of the market I played sports growing up and it's very similar in some respects knowing what I know now I would never want to work on Wall Street for those who are pondering the leap of faith into their passion I have one observation for you that might be useful all the successful ventures I have had in my life were made possible when I surrounded myself with people of high quality that were way smarter than me and more experienced than me the right people is the key to any venture [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Reddit Jar

Views: 52,288

Rating: 4.7808218 out of 5

Keywords: reddit, r/AskReddit, ask reddit, askreddit, updoot, toadfilms, sir reddit, reddit jar, askreddit funny, askreddit dumb, reddit ama, reddit ask me anything, r/askreddit, reddit stories, reddit story, askreddit scary, askreddit stupid, scary stories, askreddit new, top posts, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, askreddit top posts, subreddit, funny reddit, best reddit posts, askreddit stories, best of reddit, reddit best, funny askreddit, storytime with reddit, r/

Id: 4mNBGqtBF10

Length: 32min 24sec (1944 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2019