Quitting was easy. Convincing myself I could was hard.
The immigrant child success manual taught me how to survive. Not how to stop chasing.
In the weeks since leaving my job, I’ve been asked by friends and strangers alike
What does it feel like to quit?
To walk away from a steady paycheck? From money?
I usually say that it’s scary. But not as scary as you think.
That it’s liberating to have your time back.
That New York is a terrible place to be unemployed, but a wonderful place to be free.
And I mean all of that.
But that’s not the whole story.
You can’t understand what it feels like to walk away from something, until you know what it meant to finally have it.
What does it feel like to reach everything you’d been working toward - and still not know how to slow down?
It feels like surfacing after nearly drowning - lungs burning, body panicked, gulping down air in greedy, shallow swallows.
Money was my oxygen.
I’d learned to breathe in survival - quick, desperate, never enough.
So even after I reached land, secured a salary and a safety net, I couldn’t slow down.
My body didn’t trust that I was safe.
Because when all you’ve known is scarcity, rest doesn’t feel like rest.
It feels like drowning slower.
It feels like spending your life digging - striking gold, seeing it glitter, wanting more, and wondering if it’ll ever feel like enough.
Because money doesn’t just keep you alive, it keeps you chasing.
It tugs at your time, your energy, your imagination. It turns choices into calculations. Leisure into luxury.
It’s not just a handcuff. It’s gravity.
Constant. Invisible. Omnipresent.
And the closer I got, the harder it was to let go.
My grandparents grew up in famine.
My parents grew up in poverty.
I grew up poor, but hopeful.
And this - the security, the status, the ‘success’ - was the pinnacle of what three generations had been hoping for.
I reached it.
And when I did, I told myself this is what it was all for.
I should feel lucky. Be grateful.
But gratitude doesn’t always quiet the guilt.
Especially when my parents are still working six days a week.
My dad wakes up at 8. Puts on his polo and khakis.
Steeps his tea. Watches NBA highlights with the sound low.
Drives his twenty-year-old Toyota to the restaurant. Parks in the same spot he has for years.
Ten hours on his feet. Every weekend. Every holiday.
They don’t complain. They don’t slow down.
I offer my mom a monthly allowance. Tell her she doesn’t have to work so hard anymore.
She refuses - first with a laugh, then with pride.
She tells me to not worry.
To take care of myself.
To rest.
I tell her I’m trying.
And that she should, too.
But part of me wonders if either of us knows how.
When you’ve spent your whole life swimming against the current, what does it feel like to finally breathe?
People still ask me what it feels like to quit.
I say that it’s scary. But not as scary as you think.
That it’s liberating to have your mind back.
But I’ve come to realize that quitting was never the hard part.
It took one call, one email, and less than 30 minutes.
The hard part was believing I could.
Believing I was allowed to.
Because it’s never the leap.
It’s the permission.
Further reading:
For resonance: Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano
For inspiration: The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life by
For poetry on loop: Word is Bond by Khantrast