How It All Began

Year of 2013

I was around 20 when it all started. I was in a 9 to 5 office job contemplating what life was and what more there was to life. You know, the daily struggle many have but don’t know how to break the habit of? The one where you would numb the feelings of stagnation with alcohol and a good time every single weekend knowing that it eventually wears off. I bet it sounds far too familiar for many of you reading this but lets not stray too far away from the story.

One day it just clicked and I took the leap of faith and quit. No job, no security, no income and no idea where the road would take me. I called it my epiphany or moment of clarity, however you want to phrase it.

Now imagine if you will, being 21 with your family saying you have made the biggest mistake of your life, your friends worrying about if you will have enough just to go out and get plastered (Aussie slang for drunk) and everyone else providing their 2 cents that you really didn’t care to hear. It wasn’t pretty but deep down I knew it was the right thing to do. It was as if my soul or gut or intuition was telling me to let it go and that is exactly what happened. I felt like a burden had lifted off my shoulders and that there was absolutely nothing stopping me from doing what I wanted instead of what the ‘normal’ person deemed standard.

For a couple of weeks after the resignation I didn’t do too much. I reflected on how free I was and that I didn’t have any stress or worry in my life and that I believed everything would be alright. I treated myself to a holiday for the first time in 3 years and ended up going on 5 that year. That would have been one of the best years of my life.

After the holidays I found a nice simple bartending job and did that for a couple of months to get some cash coming in until a job opportunity popped up and back to the 9 to 5 I went. This time it was a little bit different having it as a casual role with a couple of hours a week just to get by and thought this wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, I got caught up back into that ‘lifestyle’ and got a new 9 to 5 and ended up back where I started, back to the drinking and partying every weekend, not knowing how I got home, blacking out and making bad decisions each step of the way.

My missed opportunity at a young age to learn something so valuable but there are always second chances.