In mid-2020, while the world was going through an upheaval, I got the opportunity of a lifetime: to turn my passion for writing into a profession. It was a dream come true: combining my love for writing and teaching with my experience in UX design. At the Interaction Design Foundation, I met and worked with some of the most brilliant minds from across the globe. I had opportunities to travel and grow professionally, eventually leading the editorial team.
In three and a half years I grew and changed as an individual. It was the most fulfilling role I’ve had in my life and for that, I will forever be grateful. But it came with a cost.
Some people say that we must not mix passion with profession. We might lose both! Others say that we must be in love with our work so that we don’t actually “work”. I realized that there was another angle to this debate. In my case, I was so much in love with my job, that I lost myself in it. I spent such a long time doing what I love for someone else, that I was too exhausted to work on the stories I wanted to write for myself. I adopted the brand’s voice and lost my own.
Before I knew it, my body started to hurt.
Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, I could see where I was heading. It had been close to eight years, but memories started haunting me. It was a different time, a different company, but the pain was eerily similar.
I used to struggle with lower back pain. Most days it would be okay. And then every now and then it would flare up. And when it did, it made my life a living nightmare. I couldn’t sit, stand, walk, or even lie down without jolting.
I went to several doctors and popped all kinds of pills. Everything seemed to work for a while. And then, everything stopped working. I continued soldiering through the pain.
I was practically second in command in the company. I couldn’t take too many days off.
My family pleaded with me to leave my job. Angry and in tears, I fought with them. I stood my ground. To them, I was stubborn. In reality, I was scared.
Our society places a premium on being employed. Our worth and the respect we command are based on what we do in life. The last thing I wanted to be was a housewife. Housewife: that word is so demeaning that we now use different synonyms to make it sound like we appreciate that role: a homemaker, family manager, home engineer. But call it what you will, it is subtly associated with someone who doesn’t earn money or have status in public life. Since my childhood, I was conditioned to believe that choosing not to work was synonymous with being useless. The ultimate humiliation.
I needed to work, not for the money, but for my self-esteem.
Meanwhile, my attacks were getting more frequent. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed. I began missing important meetings. It got to a point where I felt I might be fired. So, I finally took the most difficult decision of my life. I told myself to quit.
Quitting a job without another in hand and with no financial safety net isn’t easy. I had no choice. I needed to fix myself.
Understanding my predicament, my employer suggested that I take a break, and use this opportunity to start a freelance career. “Take a month off. We can work out a part-time contract. We’ll be your first clients.”
Perhaps it was that reassurance that I’d still have something to come back to, that helped me relax a little. I tied as many loose ends as I could, handed over my work and signed the offboarding documents. I still remember that metro ride home. My body writhed in agony every time the train stopped. My colleagues pitied my plight.
The first few days of my unemployment, however, had a profound impact. To my surprise, I felt like a big weight was off my shoulders. More importantly, I realized that being employed wasn’t the sole purpose of life. Contrary to what I expected, I even enjoyed being at home. “You look happy,” my uncle remarked when he saw me shortly after my newfound freedom.
I also learned that patriarchy—that thing that I always complained about—was helping me. When I met an ex-colleague a month later, he remarked, “You can afford to quit because you’re a woman. No one would say anything to you. I wish I could also quit my job.”
I am not going to defend patriarchy. But I can better explain feminism. It is not about men being subservient to women as revenge for centuries of oppression. It’s about men and women both being allowed to live their lives the way they’d like to, without having to live up to certain expectations from society or being judged for their life choices and circumstances.
Workplace dynamics aren’t built for everyone. And I realized that the work environment I was in, wasn’t built for me. I didn’t form any meaningful friendships at work. The office was in a basement, devoid of sunlight. While I learned a lot and did meaningful work, at the end of the day, it didn’t pay as well as a corporate job would’ve paid me. I wished I had quit sooner.
If I hadn’t quit, I wouldn’t have become a freelancer. I began working remotely much before the world discovered it. Money wasn’t regular, but that didn’t matter. I was a master of my time and priorities. I regained my health and felt physically and mentally fit.
I had the capacity to work on side projects that mattered to me—like online workshops in storytelling and composting! I vowed to not work full-time again.
That vow, however, didn’t last long. Three years later, I randomly applied for the role of writer at the Interaction Design Foundation and turned out to be a perfect fit.
Fast forward three more years. My backaches were coming back, and this time, they were bringing more mysterious friends with them. My body was showing signs of unrest. I had to act fast before it turned out to be an all-out revolution like my last full-time gig.
I’d quit once before. It should’ve been easy to take that plunge again. But like the last time, I fought with my family and lingered on. This time, for very different reasons. I loved my job, the people, and well, the paycheck. This was the organization that made me realize my worth. Money sometimes acts like a golden noose. The string is always in our hand, and money makes us pull it tighter around our neck.
I debated hard with myself for several months. Eventually, I decided to pull the plug again. And like last time, it was only after I left that I realised why it was important for me to have done that. I had sacrificed my voice for someone else, and it would take several months for me to regain the courage to write again.
Musings of an eccentric mind 