On Quitting and Choosing Myself—Even When It’s Inconvenient or Unpopular
Great Meadows, MA. Photo by Quinn Corte, March 2024.
On Quitting and Choosing Myself—Even When It’s Inconvenient or Unpopular
The length of time I let myself suffer is getting shorter.
For example, I have a migraine medication that works well if I take it early and rest a bit. After a decade of experience, I’m well-acquainted with the early signs of migraine. And yet…I resist taking the medication. I resist it, and when I do, I always end up in more pain for a longer period of time.
Why do I resist what helps? Because getting a migraine is inconvenient and frustrating. In that moment, I'd rather ignore the truth and hope it just goes away.
Of course, the kicker is that when I ignore the early signs, my pain continually gets louder and harsher until I must cancel my entire day and tend to it. Whereas, taking the medication usually only involves a brief interruption of rest and less pain overall.
Lately, I’ve gotten fed up with this pattern. Instead of battling it, what if I just accept that I’m a person who gets migraines and frequently has to take breaks and drugs in order to be okay?
It leads to a much bigger question.
What if I truly started giving my body what it needs, even when it’s inconvenient? And what if I did it immediately, instead of waiting until I was in crisis?
~
Last July, I started a fancy new job.
It checked a lot of boxes (great coworkers, a bigger paycheck, lots of prestige). I was really good at the job, and they were thrilled to have me.
But unfortunately, the job did not agree with my body.
After a few weeks, my body launched a full-scale rebellion. Symptoms that began very subtly got bigger and louder. At first, it was exhaustion and moodiness. Then it evolved into migraines, stomach issues, anxiety, eye infections, the flu…the whole nine yards.
I can’t tell you how inconvenient this was. I was brand new and wanted to prove myself. I had a lot of people relying on me to make big decisions urgently. I had an extremely full schedule. I was drowning in a massive workload and needed to maximize every possible working minute. I didn’t have time for my body to fail me.
But this isn’t my first rodeo. I knew my health wasn’t randomly declining. My body was trying to tell me something my brain couldn’t quite grasp yet: this job wasn’t good for me.
Deep down I knew the job was making me sick, but I resisted it. At the time, the stakes felt really high. I was brand new, I was in charge, and I had committed.
I tried to fix the situation. On the outside, I had numerous conversations with my boss to try and improve working conditions. On the inside, I tried to bargain with myself by saying it might get better. I pressured myself to push through because people were counting on me. And I tried to reason with my body, because on paper, there were many reasons to stay.
I’ll talk your ear off about the importance of taking care of yourself. I’ll wax poetic on my fervent belief that all beings deserve ample rest, care, and vitality. And I practice what I preach—I take sacred care of myself in so many ways. Unless taking care of myself lets other people down. Unless being well means abandoning my plan or my reputation.
My drive to achieve, impress, and belong are so damn strong that they constantly override my body’s distress signals.
~
In the midst of all this, I heard a fantastic interview with my muse, author Liz Gilbert. She said:
“The great thing that’s happening as I’m about to be 50…is that…my very being—my body, my spirit, my emotions, my intellect—when I’m in a scenario that’s bad for me, will break. Very quickly. Which I used to think was a problem, and now I think is grace.
“I used to think [breaking] meant I was weak and that I needed to buck up and transcend and overcome. But now I just see, ‘Oh! This is just my dear friend Life telling me that this is not where I’m supposed to be, because I’m not relaxed, and I’m not thriving, and I’m not at ease, and I don’t feel confident, and I don’t feel contented.’
“And I can try to overcome [the breaking] with will and striving harder and trying to fix things, or I can just say, ‘Oh. Excuse me, I’m out. This is not where I’m supposed to be’…
“I don’t really put very much effort anymore into ‘making things work’…I really believe that things will just work when they’re meant to.”
Mic drop.
My body was trying to tell me I was in the wrong place. And instead of fighting it, I needed to listen.
So often we rage against our exhausted bodies for being inconvenient when they’re actually trying to steer us in the right direction. We blame ourselves when something isn’t working instead of recognizing when a situation, person, or environment is a bad fit for us. And we double-down and strive harder when things aren’t working, because we think walking away is a failure.
Liz reminded me that breaking didn't mean I was a bad person or needed to strive harder. Breaking was a sign something was wrong.
~
After a few weeks of denying the truth, agonizing over the decision, bargaining with myself, advocating to my boss, raging about our broken systems, getting tons of support, and grieving the loss, I decided to quit.
A younger Quinn would have toughed it out much longer. But 40-year-old Quinn wasn’t interested in being miserable.
It took therapy, coaching, and righteous pep talks from my people, but I walked out of that job like a badass. My head was held high. And even though a younger part of me was terrified of letting everyone down, I didn’t over-explain my decision or grovel for approval.
In the end, we parted on excellent terms. Everyone was supportive and really sorry to see me go, and they took my advice to make impactful structural changes following my departure.
I love that place and its people—it just wasn’t the right job for me. For all our sakes, I’m glad I didn’t keep toughing it out.
Like many of us, I have a pattern of ignoring my needs when it might disappoint people. But there’s something about turning 40—about having the gift of experience—that allowed me to say “no thank you,” a lot sooner than I would have ten years ago.
Here are a few things I know for sure:
Falling apart isn’t a failing. It’s a sign that something’s wrong.
You don’t have to keep pushing just because others need something from you.
You’re a grown-up. You’re the authority of your own life. You can almost always say “no” and survive it.
You don’t have to understand or explain why something isn’t working. As Cheryl Strayed says, "Wanting to leave is enough."
Staying the course may seem easier, but it isn’t necessarily better for you.
It’s terrifying to let other people down, but it’s far worse to let yourself down.
When I told others that I quit my big new job after just six months, a lot of them got an awestruck look and told me I was brave. I wondered if they were actually thinking, “You can do that?”
Yes, you can do that.
You can walk away from anything that doesn’t feel good, even if it’s frowned upon. And guess what? You don’t even have to wait until your body completely breaks down. You can change your mind and make inconvenient decisions just because something doesn’t feel right.
You can choose yourself.
Choosing yourself might mean accepting an inconvenient truth about who you really are. It might mean having difficult conversations, very publicly changing course, or abandoning beloved plans. But that temporary discomfort will lead you toward freedom.
Every time you choose yourself instead of staying the course, it gets a little easier. Eventually, you won’t let yourself suffer as long.
You won’t put off taking the damn medicine.
Your turn:
When was a time you chose yourself, even though it was unpopular?
What need are you ignoring because you don’t want to rock the boat?
What change does your body want you to make right now?