What’s on the other side of employment

Is it more than just… unemployment?

Drawing by Author

Is there life after quitting?

This question is silly and melodramatic to ask oneself.

Aren’t our lives structured in a way that makes this nonsense question quite sensible?

Of course, there’s life after quitting, but its psychology is too unfamiliar and overwhelming to call it the same word. It’s life, and it’s also not quite the same life I’m used to.

Since obtaining my bachelor’s degree in law I’ve been working for 7 years. Some people enter the labour market right after finishing school or even earlier. I only had occasional jobs before immersing myself fully into the pond with sharks and piranha. In that sense, I was lucky to get a three-year delay, but— when the gap between me and the future job began to close up — I felt an existential dread I’d never experienced.

Right before leaving the safe space of university halls, library, dormitory and other academic premises, I developed tinnitus. For a few days, extreme noise was all I could hear, so much that I couldn’t sleep. It got better with time, but it has also stayed in the background of my life. Why did it happen? I believe that the anticipatory stress of entering the “adult world” where you have to balance work and life hit me hard…