Leaving Your Office Job: What I'd Tell You First

Hi. It's Yoko, food blogger.

"I'm about ready to quit my office job... maybe I'll open a cafe..."
If that's you, are you scared?

Don't worry.
It's scary at first, but I bet by the time you finish this article you'll feel okay, lol.

Last year I left the major IT company where I'd worked for more than ten years.

It's been almost a year, so I put together what made me decide to quit and how my state of mind changed afterward.

I hope it helps anyone thinking about leaving a salaried job right now.

My experience leaving the corporate world

I joined a big IT company straight out of university.

Things went well until about the time the IT bubble burst.

I had a mysterious sense of pride in being in a cutting-edge industry.

The pay was better than in other industries, and my peers were distinctive people who inspired one another.

I felt like I was riding a really good wave.

But really, I was just being carried along by it.

I wasn't paddling with my hands, and I hadn't stood up on the board.
I'd never tried to do anything proactively on my own.

I'm not bad at getting things done, so I gained the skills to get through my daily work, and that was all.

Wait... this isn't the "grown-up" I imagined.

I started to feel like I had no personality, that I was ordinary.

After my third year, my peers started leaving.

I start to want out

Year four... year five... one by one, people quit.

Some of them started their own businesses, and I began to think I might not be able to keep working at this company forever.

The stress of a salary that never changed no matter how many years passed.

The stress of sometimes having to suppress myself.

And the frustration of knowing I was the one choosing to spend my time that way.

All of it built up little by little in my cup, until it finally overflowed.

The secret to successfully leaving your job

The secret to successfully leaving is this:

first of all, quit on momentum.

I'm the type who can't start my summer homework until the 31st...

The only thing I'd decided was that I would study in France,

and I figured if I quit, I wouldn't be able to make a living, so I'd be forced to do something. So I just quit.

I had told my direct manager about six months earlier, but to my coworkers I may have seemed like someone who left suddenly.

Looking back now, I really don't think you need to care what other people think.

In reality, nobody is that interested in other people.

In my last few months, there were even times I enjoyed work.

Maybe because my desire to focus on what I liked had grown stronger...

These days you won't die that easily, so I think it's fine to just quit.

If you have a family home, you can go back there if things get dire, and with some savings you can live for about a year.

If you want to travel around the world, you could stay a very long time in countries with low prices, couldn't you?

And rather than doing the same job every day, you'd surely level up as a person in all sorts of ways.

Maybe not many people think that way.

Well, my income isn't stable yet, so I can't talk big.

I quit thinking that if I just struggled for a while, a path would show itself.

Of course, it's best if you've already decided what you want to do next,

but time is limited.

Even if you've decided nothing, if you have savings to last about a year, quitting first is the way to do it.

What I regretted after leaving

What I regretted after quitting was that I should have made lots of friends outside the company.

For a while after leaving, I struggled with loneliness.

I'd been at the office all day on weekdays, so any time with friends was in the evening, and I had no classes or hobbies.

I stayed home almost all the time.

If you're a workaholic with no hobbies and an introvert, be careful!

You can live while poor, but you can't live while lonely.

By the way, in an experiment the psychologist Rene Spitz carried out on orphans who survived World War II,

when a mother ignored her baby or treated it with a blank face, the baby would cry fiercely or, in the worst cases, even die.

Not belonging to an organization like a school or company was a first for me, and at the start that alone was stressful.

I'm nobody, a boring person...
I fought a feeling of helplessness over silly thoughts like that.

Nobody to talk to when I woke up. Boring. I was free to get up whenever and go to bed whenever.

But on days I woke up in the evening or just played games all day, I really got depressed, lol.

"Tomorrow I'll get up early and go running!" I'd think, then fall back asleep. Total self-loathing.

When I had plans to spend time with friends, it was a different story.

If you're planning to leave your job, actively get involved with communities outside work.

Five changes after leaving

A lot changed after I left.

Above all, getting to study in France was the biggest change.

1. I made friends abroad by studying overseas

After leaving, I went to study in France and made friends from many countries.
That makes me really happy. I want to visit my friends' countries someday!

I made friends outside the company

I'd also been going to a French school in Tokyo before I left, and I made friends there.

We hung out during my time abroad too.

2. I gained new values

Japan has a strong service spirit and everyone is clean,

but the French go at their own pace. In a good way, it's impressive.

After a long stay in France, I became more tolerant of other people's pace.
.
It took getting used to not having a washlet toilet,
but I became fine with things like no hot towels at restaurants or a lack of friendliness.

I came to dislike the word "normal."
Because Japan's normal is not the world's normal. There's no such thing as normal.

3. I can hold everyday conversations in French

I found a wonderful school that focused on speaking, and I got to the point where French people say things like "You speak French? You're good!"
I also made English-speaking friends, so my English improved a little too.

4. My self-discipline got stronger

This is what made me happiest.

I'm still working on it, but I almost never sleep until evening anymore, lol.

If you're reading this lying around, go ahead and keep drifting through your days with peace of mind.

I, a super lazy person, can tell you for certain: you will get tired of that life!
Actually, your body won't last.

If you lie around all the time, your back starts to hurt, and if you don't eat or drink, you get lightheaded.

It starts to affect your health...

I actually got anemic twice and collapsed in the bathroom.

And I hated myself for it, lol.

But all of it is your own choice. Live in whatever way is comfortable for you.

For your mental health, it's better to focus not on what you should do but on "what do I want to do today?"

If you want to play games, play. If you end up cornered because of it, that's on you.

What I recommend for anyone who wants to escape the laziness is "borrow books from the library."

You pick up knowledge from the books, and because there's a due date, even cheapskates like me have to get up and read.

Also, you have to go outside, lol.

Only the first trip to the library takes a bit of energy, but give it a try.

Finally,

whether to leave your job is up to you, but you are the one who decides who you are now and the environment you're in.

If you live positively every day it will work out, so if you're torn about quitting, quit first and think afterward!