The Brooding Life

This was a recent hypothetical I asked myself. This was in the context of a friend who quit my old firm to do a masters in Oxford. Although I didn’t think of doing a Masters, or one at Oxford at the least, I still felt a tinge of envy. I asked myself WHY? Why do you envy someone who is doing something you didn’t think of doing before? The only answer I had was “She enjoys privilege, which is not something I have.” My parents are not wealthy, I can’t just quit my job for a year with my Masters paid for. As the saying in Cantonese goes, “if my hands stop, my mouth stops” i.e. if I stop working, I will not have enough to feed myself. 

I never dreamt that an escape route from a toxic job is to do a Masters to fill a gap in my CV. Quitting is never an option for me. I’ve got bills to pay and (my) mouth to feed. This provoked the question “What would you do if your parents had money?” Of course it is all hypothetical - we all grow up with the mindsets shaped by our upbringing. Just as I never thought quitting to study Masters was an option for me. Strangely, the first time I thought about it, I couldn’t think of what I WOULD do. I knew that studying a Masters wasn’t my thing but else could I do? What did I actually enjoy besides seeing my salary being creditted to my bank account every month? I struggled to find the answer because I haven’t thought of what I actually liked to do (besides making enough money) for a long long time. Perhaps too damn long a time, I couldn’t even think of an answer to the hypothetical question. 

2022. This might suit an end of year top-it-off thank-you-all post but I might forget all the thoughts I have right now so I my as well type a stream of consciousness post. 

More than 1 year and 2 months after I vowed to quit my toxic job, I finally quit on 23 June 2022. I even bought a watch to commemorate that day. But I digress. I have imagined how my resignation would play out many times when I was on the verge of a meltdown. But then it just happened on a day that could have been any other Thursday. Was it cathartic? Did it feel like revenge? It was less like catharsis or revenge and more like relief. It seems anti-climatic really. I was plotting and scheming day and night to leave that place and when I was finally able to throw in my resignation, I didn’t feel much beyond “I said I would leave and I am leaving.” You know what they say about promises. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If I may add, don’t make promises to yourself you can’t keep. I vowed in April 2021 I would quit but the thought of walking away from the enviable paycheck made me stay month after month. After the year end bonus cleared on 31 December, I was still there. I told myself everyday “if your bank account is happy, you are happy”. That happiness didn’t last for longer than the day my salary hit my account. Each of the other 29 or 30 days a month was just pure torture. I lived everyday in anticipation of the next paycheck. Because that was the only justification for being unhappy. Unhappiness is like caffeine - you achieve tolerance after a while and that plateau of negativity just sits with you.

I took annual leave in April just around Easter. I asked (or demanded depending whose perspective it is from) the partner to approve my leave asap and offered a call to discuss. On the call, she said with little emotion in her voice “between you and me, if everyone asks for block leave to go overseas, it would be unfair to other associates”. I told the partner (expecting at least a bit of sympathy) that “between you and me, I am on the verge of breakdown”. The “between you and me” was a direct quote from her previous sentence just because I liked how secretive that sounded. Fat chance that had on getting her to understand I might implode anytime. 

During my break I went to London - a place I am familiar with, and Cornwall. I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. I just did whatever I felt like doing in the moment. I went for a run to Regent’s Park one morning and it rained when I was just on my way to Camden. I took cover in a nearby cafe and observed from behind the glass window people cycling to work, people darting into a brick arch for cover and just the humdrum of city life. I thought nothing of whatever I saw; I just watched. Going to London was a time for me to stop my brain from spinning. It was nice to be living without processing.