Why I Quit My Dream Job

I had the job everyone wanted. Corner office, great team, impressive title on LinkedIn. From the outside, it looked like I had made it.

But every Sunday night, I felt a knot in my stomach. The work was fine. The pay was excellent. But I was not excited. I was not learning. I was going through the motions.

The breaking point was a Tuesday morning. I was sitting in a meeting that could have been an email, thinking about a side project I had been working on for months — an app that helped local farmers sell produce directly to restaurants. That project lit me up. The meeting did not.

I handed in my resignation that Friday. My boss thought I was having a breakdown. My parents thought I had lost my mind. My friends were confused.

That was 18 months ago. Today, my app is live in three cities. I earn less than half of what I used to. But I wake up excited. I work on something I believe in. I am building something of my own.

The dream job was never really my dream. It was someone else's definition of success.