A 'Want to' Life

Source: Contextual Posts 

It's taken me a while to write this post, mainly because I can't quite seem to word it as I imagined.

In January I started the new year by packing up my bags and moving my life down to Southampton to start a job in the New Forest, a part of the world I've definitely fallen in love with. The job however, not so much.

I made a big decision a month ago and decided to quit my job. I handed in my months notice with absolutely no plans of what I'm going to do.

There were plenty of positives to my job, working with lovely people who make me laugh every day, learning a lot from the chefs and sommeliers I work alongside and seeing the horses on the way to work and deer on the way home would never get old. Yet sometimes these little things aren't enough.

I've seen so many quotes recently along the lines of "Don't spend so much time making a living that you forget to make a life". I'm 23 years old, I don't want to look back on my life when I'm in my 80's and think about how I spent years of my life working long hours, with no social life, in a job I'm not passionate about.

To me, the logical step to take was to quit the job I don't enjoy and take some time to do things I enjoy, earning a bit of money where I can on the way and hopefully finding a job I love in the process. I'm happy to admit that I don't really know what I want to do in life. I know that I want to travel, bake and play sports as much as I can and if I could do all that then get married and pop out a few kids by the time I'm 30, I'd say I'd be living the dream life. So why not do these things?

The question I'm being asked most at the moment is "So have you worked out what you're doing next?". Yet a surprising number of people seem shocked when the answer is "No, I have absolutely no idea". I've recently read "20 something, 20 everything" and it really saddened me to read how many people featured in that book were in jobs just because it paid well and felt like it was the path they had to take after university, even if it wasn't necessarily the path they wanted to take.

There's so much pressure to join the corporate world and work our way up in business, which is the path some people want to take and that's fine. Although I bet if you asked the vast majority of people my age, they really wish they were pursuing their passions or hobbies instead. So that's what I'm doing.

I've got some potential fun, short term jobs in the pipeline to give me a bit more money and keep me away from binge watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix all day, but why should I stay in a job I'm not happy in just because of how society has built itself.

As the many quotes on Pinterest say I want to live a want to life, not a have to life.