@Malkynn Thank you for all your calm, insightful writing on this forum. You have really influenced me lately and even though I don't know you I feel like you are somehow offering me some emotional support as I go through the process of quitting / downsizing a stressful career. I am feeling quite crazy for doing so at the moment - giving up the stability of a full time job for the precarious life of a freelancer but I just need a break from work. I'm really looking forward to days of simple activities like reading, going for walks, making meals, gardening. In a workaholic, money-driven culture it seems like people like us are really the odd ones out. ESPECIALLY in times of crisis - the job is a lifeboat for most, how could I possibly leave that during a pandemic? Sometimes I do question, what the hell am I doing? So, here's a tip of the hat to you from a stranger. Thanks for the supportive voice of reason.
Lol, I'm walking around on sunshine right now saying "man, it's a good time to be leaving my job!" A job isn't a life boat during a crisis, it's an albatross and a burden. It's only a life boat if you have other financial burdens that require the cash flow of a job. Otherwise, it's a real luxury to be able to just sit this shit out and contemplate learning how to make croissants.
If you weren't questioning it though, you would be insane.
It's not that the decisions you are making are insane, it's just that it's not normal to be able to make choices that go against the grain without having doubts and questions.
I seem so decisive about my decisions, not because I've never questioned them, but because I've questioned them to death before deciding.
Doubt is normal and healthy, and the process of learning to make solid decisions while feeling doubt and even fear is what gives someone a sureness in their convictions.
The only decisions that are really easy to make that feel automatic are the ones that you were already programmed to make, so you can never be as sure that they represent your true motivations or if you are just socially conditioned to make those choices.
The decisions you can trust most are the ones you struggled to make, that were uncomfortable, and that you still felt the need to follow through on.
That's not to say that everything turns out well, it doesn't, but learning to trust your own instincts in the face of self doubt is incredibly empowering.