It took receiving two degrees for me to realize that the American educational system is a scam. It's a ploy to focus our attention on dreams that aren’t our own, while keeping us in debt, in line and at a capped income.
Nowhere in that "dream" does it talk about personal fulfillment or determining what happiness or success looks like to you. My entire life, I found myself chasing this internalized vision of what my life "should" look like. Going to college, getting a fancy job and living happily ever after.
Unfortunately for me, my time on the corporate plantation didn’t leave me with a happy ending. After three years, I found myself being a slave to my career while neglecting myself and everything else in the process. I believed that my self-worth revolved around a place where I was seen as disposable.
I was sacrificing myself and my sanity in order to achieve what I perceived to be the good life. It got to the point that there were too many physical manifestations of depression and anxiety for me to ignore.
Since I was a Black woman in corporate america I, of course, had my hands in other pots: side hustlin’ on passion projects, with the ultimate goal of turning them into my full-time. For me, the only problem with that was after working all week, my energy was too depleted to make any effective progress towards manifesting that goal.
Around this time in parallel paths I was on a journey of self-discovery, understanding my needs, wants, likes, dislikes, motivations and dreams. On my 24th birthday, I went to New York and got liberate tattooed on my left wrist as a reminder that I am in charge of my own life and that I have the ability to create it as I want it to be.
This led me to make my most radical decision to date. On September 1, 2017, I walked out of corporate America for the last time, and I haven’t looked back. By walking out of that job, I walked away from society’s idea of who I should be and how I should live my life, as well as the person I was when I was at that place.
Since leaving, I’ve literally never been happier or more fulfilled. My side hustle has turned up, as I've further aligned myself with my purpose. I’ve unlearned so much about society and learned so much about myself. I’ve lost weight, my skin is glowing and I now place myself as my highest priority. While it may have been the most radical, quitting my job and simply doing me was the best decision I’ve ever made!
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