Should I quit my job?

I wrote a whole essay on this, because I watched able men spend their lives being busy and arrive at the end having never lived. Life is not short. We make it short by handing it over in pieces to whoever asks: a little to the office, a little to ambition, a little to people who will not remember our names. So begin with arithmetic. How many of your waking hours does this work consume, and how many of those would you choose to spend this way if you were not being paid?nnIf the answer is very few, you have your reason. A job that devours your days is a bad bargain at any salary, and the money only buys you more ways to be distracted from the fact.nnBut be careful. I spent years at the court of Nero and asked more than once to be released. I know the fantasy that a change of place will make you a different person. It will not. A man who runs from one post to another carries his restlessness with him like luggage. If you are unhappy because you are idle in spirit, careless with your time or hungry for approval, the next job will have the same tenant.nnSo quit if the work itself steals your life. Stay, and repair yourself first, if it is you that needs changing. Either way, start today. The one mistake that cannot be undone is deciding later.

You want someone to tell you which door to take. I am more interested in the person standing between the doors.nnThere is a way of living I described at length, the life of the aesthete, which avoids boredom by constant change. A new field, a new interest, a new city, rotated like crops so the soil never seems exhausted. It feels like freedom. It is actually a way of never committing to anything long enough to be answerable for it. If you are thinking of quitting because the work has become dull and something else would be more interesting, ask honestly whether you are choosing or merely rotating.nnThe other way is to choose yourself: to take up a path with your whole weight, knowing you could be wrong, and to accept that the choice is yours and not the circumstances'. That might mean leaving. It might mean staying and finally giving the work the seriousness you have been withholding from it. What matters is that it is a decision rather than a drift.nnThe anxiety you feel is not a sign that you are about to make a mistake. It is the dizziness of freedom, the vertigo of someone who has noticed that more than one future is possible and that he must answer for whichever he takes. Do not try to make it go away by waiting for certainty. Certainty is not coming. Choose, and become the person who chose.

You speak of quitting as though it concerned you alone. It does not. Begin with the people your work supports: parents growing older, children still growing, a household that relies on what you bring home. A choice that leaves them exposed is not courage, however brave it feels. Put their needs on the scale first, and be honest about the weight.nnThen ask a second question, which is about the place itself. I served in office and I left office. When those I served cared more for entertainment than for governing well, I did not stay to lend them my name. A person of good character takes office when the way is followed and withdraws when it is not. There is no disgrace in leaving a post where you are asked to do wrong, or where your work only fattens someone who neglects his own duties. The disgrace is in staying for the salary while pretending you do not see.nnAnd a third: what are you leaving for? The small man thinks about profit. The noble person thinks about what is right. If you go only to earn more, you have changed nothing important. If you go to do work you can do properly, where your conduct and your role agree, you will have done well even if you earn less.nnLeave carefully, finish what you owe, speak well of those you served. How you depart is part of who you are.