Here Goes Nothing…
It’s a crazy thing to walk away from your career, right? To work hard for years, go to school, intern and work your way up and be interviewing for your “dream” job …only to realize you don’t want it. Not even a little. But there I was, at 33 years old, thinking about what truly matters in life and what I wanted, and realizing it was so different than what I thought was for me.
This is my first post, so I will keep it brief, but since moving to the NYC area around two and a half years ago for a new job in public relations, I have come to lose a lot of respect for most of the agencies that drive the industry and what we do. I looked at my job every day, feeling quite hollow, seeing that it was oftentimes cutthroat, shallow, and honestly, quite unethical by my personal moral standards. I was constantly trying to get media to care about a client just for the sake of getting press, but without a story or anything truly new/beneficial to readers. I felt wrong about what I was doing at times and I realized I was a hypocrite for doing something that I so harshly judged. No matter how hard I tried to ignore these feelings, I could see it starting to reflect in the quality of my work. It wasn’t what I came into communications/PR to do — I wanted to make a difference; help get stories told that would impact lives and boost companies that I believed in or were making the world a better place.
As I struggled with these feelings daily in my mind, losing sleep, and debating myself, I was also beginning to write articles for various publications about my life and experiences. For background, I was paralyzed in a car accident and use a wheelchair full-time, and up to that point hadn’t ever really publicly explored my feelings about my disability or the unique experiences it’s brought me. I was also learning more about the disability rights movement, the lack of disability representation in corporate America, politics and pop culture, and felt myself having more of a yearning to leave my job.
I thought about what it was like to grow up “different” in my small town and how harmful it was for my self esteem. I wanted to be writing about these hurdles and triumphs of myself and others, and speaking and mentoring more. I’m not sure if I’m right or completely delusional, but I became convinced that maybe I had more to offer the world than putting out press releases and creating communications strategies for things I didn’t connect to, selfish as that is.
And so, sitting on the beach at sunrise in Malibu, contemplating how lucky I am to be alive, and determined to make a more helpful impact, I made the decision to leave my career and a job I tried for years to get. I gave my notice on January 23rd, four days after I turned 33.
It’s been almost two months since my last day of PR agency life, and although I have a different kind of stress now, it’s a better kind of stress. There’s a sort of peace that comes along with knowing you’ve made the right decision.
Will I be successful? I honestly have absolutely no idea and there’s a very good chance that it will all be for nothing, but I’d regret it forever if I didn’t try.
I invite you on my journey and perspectives on career, relationships, disability, the media, travel, and probably a multitude of other topics. Thank you for humoring me, and thank you for reading.
