The Opportunity Cost!

It was 3 PM on Tuesday afternoon, I was drafting a farewell Email for my colleagues and Manager. It was my last working day with a leading Private Bank.

After 6 years of service there, I had decided to quit and to head on to some unknown paths. As I was writing this email, my mind was filled with thousands of emotions. Gosh! I am gonna miss this place, I will miss this workstation, I will miss the corporate work culture, meetings, canteen and most importantly my monthly salary. Did I do the right thing? Was I having second thoughts?

That day I realized this is human nature. When we part from a person or a place, we start to remember all the good things about it. And when we are there with that person or place all we think about the bad experiences and all we think about the way to get out of there.

Although I had systematically evaluated all the pros and cons of leaving the job and this was something I had wanted to do long back but 6 years passed just like that thinking whether to quit or not quit.

The most important thing which was bothering me was my monthly salary which I am not going to get after this month. How will I afford all my luxuries, how will I finance my travel plans. As I was re-thinking about my decision I was calculating the Opportunity cost of quitting the job and that was some thousand bucks which would get credited in my bank account at the end of each month and perhaps only for this one thing I was slogging unwillingly in a Black and White corporate job.

But then suddenly something struck me. While I was calculating the cost of quitting the job in monetary terms, I was ignoring the non-monetary aspect.

Being in that job was costing me something which could not be measured in monetary terms. As a CA I was always taught to calculate the costs in measurable terms but life is not Accounting. Being in a 9 to 5 job was costing me something which was immeasurable. Perhaps, my principles of accounting don't even apply there.

I am a creative person and it was hard for me to find time to pursue my creative interests. I had quit painting, I had quit writing, I had quit imagining, I had quit dreaming while I was working. This job was strangling my creativity. I was doing what I was told to do all these years which was very difficult for a creative person like me. I had lost my creative freedom, my imagination, my enthusiasm which was immeasurable and priceless. Most importantly, I had stopped learning new things, something which I had been doing all my life.

As a child and as you grow up, you learn so many things from your parents, grandparents, teachers and some on your own. We take part in competitions, debates, cultural events, quiz competitions, art competitions only to forget them and start working for some corporate in a monotonous job profile. You get promoted, you get salary hikes for showing no creativity and doing the same thing every year. And then it becomes difficult for you to make decisions like this.

I have nothing against going for employment but any work which kills your creativity and life skills is not worth your time and energy. I am on an unknown avenue not knowing where it is taking me. I am just doing what interests me, what fills me with energy and enthusiasm like writing this blog.

As I write this, it regains my confidence and I am sure this journey will take me where I belong.