Saturday, May 23, 2009

Success or happiness? Both?

I have a history of maturing at a rapid rate (grey hairs to prove it), and I more or less had a midlife crisis at the age of 23.

My hours at work were increasing and unbearable (12 hour days), rounds of layoffs were expected, and the air in the office became venemous. All the perks of working for a video game company, my "dream job," were undercut by my petty and insecure boss, a huge revenue slump, and constant misdirection from my superiors. The concept of my job was great, but the reality was killing me. I was eating unhealthily, smoking occasionally, and spending so much of my salaruy recovering from work that I barely had anything left to save.

Around that time, a good friend of mine passed away. It was time to go home. Enough people have had their California dreams dashed that it becomes more of an annoyance than anything to join their ranks; yes, I wasn't from LA and yes, I was homesick.

My girlfriend, a Boston native like me, was also on the same page. The California chapter of our lives had concluded.

Almost two years had passed and I once again found myself without a job, driving from one side of the country to the other. I left my job to make the move, a move almost anyone would recommend against. But I was willing to work at Starbucks at that point to make ends meat. And with a network of family and friends back in Boston, I had hope that it wouldn't come to that.

On my next post, I'll write about my job hunt during a recession.

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