A Warning to the Dreamer: The World Will Make You Reconsider

Two friends mine are taking the leap.

One is a longtime banker. She is practical and very OC. She is married with one son, who is in his teens. She has been planning meticulously for a long while to take the leap and go into pre-school teaching, and ultimately, to owning a school. The past few years she’s been busy finishing her MA in Education. Late last year, she was finally going to submit her resignation.

Even before she got to talk to her superiors about leaving, she was suddenly offered a substantial raise and some other perks.

This led her to reconsider her decision.

My other friend has been in the FMCG business for a long time as well. She works as a brand manager for one of the bigger brand umbrellas in the country. She’s bright, smart, and always seems to do well in whatever company she goes to. She wanted out of the rat race though, to pursue her heart’s desires. So she gave her resignation, a number of months in advance even, just to be fair. How did the company respond? By giving her a substantial raise and assigning her to a team where one of her close friends was in.

This led her to reconsider her decision.

My banker friend had the will to push through with her resignation. She now teaches kids, to which she expounds “I’m so happy. This is something I would do for free.” You just know that her eventual school will be built by passion and love for the game. (Isn’t that a place you’d want to send your kids to?)

My second friend filed her resignation and is now counting the days down. I pray she doesn’t reconsider anymore.

When I took that leap a few years ago, my bank account (my “reserve”) was virtually wiped out by a new banking policy instituted the day before I left my day job.

This led me to reconsider my decision at the time.

Bottom line: if you are planning on taking that leap, the world will NOT make it easy on you. It will fight frantically to keep the status quo. It will either show you even more rewards the status quo brings, or more risk if you don’t choose it. And as the countdown ever draws closer, it will have aces up its sleeve.

This doesn’t help at all of course, because you are already conflicted on the inside as well.

What if I fail? What if this goes wrong? What will people think? Oh, a raise? Now?! So, hey, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this after all…

The World will test your resolve. No one likes getting conquered, after all.