Have you ever done a selfless act of good well to a close friend or a random acquaintance? and when I say selfless, it means providing an assistance, advice, guidance, or just simple plain encouragement to a person, without hidden reasons or interests, and is done as an act of good well purely.Unfortunately, in this day and age, relationships are becoming more about mutual interests than genuine code of ethics in doing good to people of all kinds and natures, and more importantly based on love and respect at all times.
Earlier today I had an amazing 3 hours video chat conversation with one of my good old friends who I know from when I was working in Saudi Arabia in 2003. An interesting 2 years I have spent in Khobar / eastern Saudi parts sharing boarders with the Kingdom of Bahrain. Naturally, being in Saudi, and specifically khobar area, you spend your weekends mainly in Bahrain since its only a 45 minutes drive from religious ruling to the exact extreme opposite, hoping to feel a bit of life outside the walls of desert, especially singles such as my good old friend.
This guy, like few lucky others had the chance to see the world, covering Latin America, all of Europe, and some parts of Asia. As someone based in Saudi, unfortunately the cultural and social boundaries in Saudi, prevents you to enjoy the same amount of freedom when you travel outside of Saudi boarders, to the fact that it feels more like you’re out from jail on prowl, and you even have to get an exist re-entry visa every time you need to leave the country for ANY reason. Then you look back, and you realize that you have advanced in life, you have advanced in your career, you get to travel and see the world, but you keep on going back to your home, either wishing for more vacation, but there is no money, or you basically have money and you rebook those short weekend trips to a relatively more flexible social & culture tolerance are available.
We went on talking about how he was looking for safety and security thru his career advancement, and the realization that regardless how much efforts he has to put in order to make enough money to survive. survive! like its almost the end.
When we talk about survival, the first image that comes to my mind is a person who tries to stay alive, living on a piece of bread, and a glass of water as a dip. We went on to find a closure to my friend survival issues, which eventually resulted to a conclusion, shared by a great entrepreneur called James altucher.
According to Mr. Altucher, 90% of people “Should” quit their jobs, and he gave 10 reasons for recognizing if now is the right time for you to leave. But that’s a little different than saying, you have to quit right now.
But the reality is, most people need to begin their exit strategy RIGHT NOW
Leap and the net will catch you
So here’s 7 reasons of them, why you need to quit your job right now.
1) Safety. We used to think you get a corporate job, you rise up, you get promoted, maybe you move horizontally to another division or a similar company, you get promoted again, and eventually you retire with enough savings in your bank social security account. That’s all gone. That myth disappeared in 2008. It really never existed but now we know it’s a myth. Corporate CEOs kept their billion dollar salaries and laid off about 20 million people and sent the jobs to China. Fine, don’t complain or blame other people. But your job is not safe.
2) Their boss. Most people don’t like their boss. Its like any relationship. Most of the time you get into a relationship for the wrong reasons. Eventually you’re unhappy. And if you don’t get out, you become miserable and scarred for life.
3) Fear. We have such a high unemployment rate, people are afraid if they leave the job they are miserable at, they won’t be able to get a job. This is true if you just walk into your boss’s office and pee on his desk and get fired. But its not true if you prepare well.
4) The Work. Most people don’t like the work they do. They spend 4 years going to college, another few years searching for the right opportunity, and then they think they have to use that lT degree, business degree, finance degree and then guess what? They hate it. But they don’t want to admit it. They feel guilty.
5) Bad things happen. All the stuff I mention in the post start to happen. And it gets worse and worse. You don’t want to look back at your life and say, “man, those were the worst 45 years of my life.” That wouldn’t feel good.
6) The economy is about to boom. I don’t care if you believe this or not. Stop reading the newspaper so much. The newspapers are trying to scare you. the US just printed up a trillion dollars and airlifted it onto their economy. Who is going to scoop that up. You in your cubicle? Think again.
7) Your job has clamped your creativity. You do the same thing every day. You want to be jolted, refreshed, rejuvenated.
Note: some people love their jobs. This is not for them but the 90% who don’t.
So: My good old friend asked a good question: you still need to support yourself, you still need to support your family, you can’t just walk into your boss’s office and quit.
Good point. You need to prepare. Its like training for the Olympics if you feel now is the time to move on from your job. You need to be physically ready, emotionally (don’t quit your job and get divorced on the same day for instance), mentally (get your idea muscle in shape) and spiritual all ready. It may seem easy to talk about preparation. like any goal needs to be achieved successfully, there are different circumstances that can effect the preparation process, and that is why you cant risk losing more time, and you have to leap before more time is lost, and the net will catch you my friend.
Apart from the necessary preparation, an individual’s self confidence as well as courage plays a big part in the process. unfortunately, due to promoting and selling the concept of success by our failed educational system, and where they forget that studying your losses is infinitely more valuable than studying your wins.
Failure is necessary and essential as success in the life of any individual, and I can thankfully say I tasted many flavors of failure in my life, and few blissful success stories as a result of learning from “my”, as well as “others” failures. As I talked along, on the breaking point of my friends life, where he started to want and need to break-free. Discussing the different possibilities that he could do in order to be better prepared when the time comes for him to LEAP.
I was happy, and thankful that my friend trusted me in providing him with proper advice, and will be happy to later provide him with the guidance he requires for his quest in breaking boundaries, and I thought I should share some of the points Mr. altucher identified to better prepare yourself for the future, and provide more guidance. it is needed to say here that Mr. Altucher considered the points below as the best alternatives for “college” as well.
1) Travel the world. Here’s a basic assignment. Take $10,000 and get yourself to India. Check out a world completely different from our own. Do it for a year. You will meet other foreigners traveling. You will learn what poverty is. You will learn the value of how to stretch a dollar. You will often be in situations where you need to learn how to survive despite the odds being against you. If you’re going to throw up you might as well do it from dysentery than from drinking too much at a party. You will learn a little bit more about oriental cultures. You will learn you aren’t the center of the universe. Knock yourself out.
2) Create art. Spend a year learning how to paint. Or how to play a musical instrument. Or write 5 novels. Learn to discipline yourself to create. Creation doesn’t happen from inspiration. It happens from perspiration, discipline, and passion. Creativity doesn’t come from from God. Its a muscle that you need to learn to build. Why not build it while your brain is still creating new neurons at a breathtaking rate than learning it when you are older (and for many people, too late).
3) Make people laugh (this is not for Jordanians). This is the hardest of all. Spend a year learning how to do standup-comedy in front of people. This will teach you how to write. How to communicate. How to sell yourself. How to deal with people who hate you. How to deal with the psychology of failure on a daily basis. And, of course, how to make people laugh. All of these items will help you later in life much more than Philosophy 101 will. And, by the way, you might even get paid along the way.
4) Write a book. Believe me, whatever book you write at the age of 18 is probably going to be no good. But do it anyway. Write a novel about what you are doing instead of going to college. You’ll learn how to observe people. Writing is a meditation on life. You’ll live each day, interpret it, write it. What a great education!
5) Work in a charity. Plenty of charities do not require you to have a college degree. What is going to serve you better in life: taking in different experiences that can enhance your global knowledge as well as getting your skills sharpen. I have an answer to this. You might have a different one. Which is why I’m listing 7 alternatives here instead of just this one. And, by the way, if you do any of these items for a year, two years, maybe ten, then maybe go to college? Why not? Its your life.
6) Master a game: What’s your favorite game? Ping pong? Chess? Poker? Learning how to master a game is incredibly hard. I’ve written before how to do it but lets start with the basics:
- study the history of the game
- study current experts on the game. videos, books, magazines, etc. Replay, or try to imitate in some way, the current masters of the game
- Play a lot: with friends, in tournaments, at local clubs, etc.
- take lessons from someone who has already mastered the game. This helps you to avoid bad habits and gets someone to immediately criticize your current skills.
Mastering a game builds discipline, lets you socialize with other people of all ages and backgrounds but who have similar passions, and helps you to develop the instincts of a killer without having to kill anyone. Nice!
7)Master a sport: Probably even better than mastering a game because its the same as all of the above but you also get in shape.
If anyone can think of any other alternatives, please list them in the comments. We only have the life we have lived. And I always sit and daydream, ‘what if..’, ‘what if..’ Its the easiest and most dangerous meditation to do: what if. Because that wish is like a wisp of smoke that can twist and turn until we disappear along with it. But as I write this post I look at these alternatives with longing and I know that when I hit “Publish” I’m going to sit here quietly while the sun goes down, wondering only about ‘what if’.
