… it’s hard to do.
Brauhster commented that quitting a job is like a divorce. I think this is a good point. There are many similarities.
The mental change that a person goes through or has to go through in order to leave one’s job is like ending a long-term relationship. This is very different from jumping from job to job which is more like a series of flings, that is, high frequency serial monogamy.
I was “married” to my career for about 17 years (counting my first crush, my masters and phd, and my two postdoc positions). This was worth almost half of my life at that time, which can be considered a long time no matter how old you are. It was in that sense not just a job, but more as a partner; and in this you are a partaker, who has been with me longer than any other of my flesh and blood. That’s what I was thinking in the shower this morning (get your mind out of the hole). ) and it was the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep. Sometimes I wake up after sleeping to jot down a few notes. Work can also be considered a partner in terms of how you interact with them. Is it decent (hot?)? Does it require sacrifice eg you have to move to Podunk, Elbonia to live with him? Does it take you to interesting places? Does it do performance reviews? Should your marriage be renewed every two years? Does it make you think? Are you happy together? Does it serve you well? Are your relationships meaningful? Does it love you back? Does it exploit you?
Have you ever thought about what your job is like as a colleague?
(Post your answer in the comments, creative types can draw and post a picture 
)
Some breakups are easy to narrow down to one reason (eg your partner one day without provocation decides to squeeze the toothbrush in half, WTH?! 
), but many separations occur due to so-called “irreconcilable differences” which in the scary language of business turns into “the pursuit of other interests”; so it’s probably the same thing. In that case one spends, in my case, years trying to reconcile those conflicts, and if it works, great, and if not, well, not so great.
Another is to live in “unnourished/comfortable suffering” — something I hear a lot e.g. “I don’t like my job/partner/whatever, but I like security and predictability and change would be too risky/too much work …”
With the “irreconcilable differences”/”pursuing other interests”-type of separation, both work and intellectually from the partner, I think that usually one stays in a friendly place, because there are still things about the partner that one likes that caused the attraction in the first place. However, a partner or a job just won’t be a part of a person’s life like it used to be. “I will call you, … eventually”.
I also think, but I may be biased by personal experience or personality, that effectively such separation is not as immediate as a single instance of separation suggests. For example, I started considering other options 4 years before I finally quit (after the first “irreconcilable rift” appeared), I got rid of materialistic feelings a year before I quit, and I got a potential replacement 6 months later, all while continuing to give My current situation is “one more chance” until the very end when I try to make it work. After that it happened very quickly. “As you tell your partner, you’re seeing someone else”-kind of fast
The funny thing is that even though things change on the outside during that time, very little changes on the inside. Some have asked me how I feel about it. Answer: “Nothing”. In that sense, “we” probably parted ways a long time ago.
I don’t think any of this applies if you are a so-called “expert”. Now I expect some arguments because not everyone understands the word “professional” in the same way that I do. To become a professional means turning your brain skills into a machine part in the most “humane” way possible. I don’t see any beauty in that (it seems like a soulless Protestant way of working to control the creative phase) and in my opinion that’s not the way to live. Think about whether you would agree to manage your relationship with your partner “professionally” or whether you would marry someone who is a “professional” in marriage? We call this prostitution. Why should your work, your life’s work, be like this?
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Originally Posted 2009-03-19 11:05:22.
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