Making life decisions is so not rainbows and unicorns

Exactly 2 years ago, I quit my job to pursue a freelancing career. I was hired to be part of a team to make something “incredible”. After New Year, I was contacted by one of my partners on that new gig that they are not going to push through with the project, and I was left with no job, and no direction whatsoever on what I’m going to do. So I swallowed my pride, and asked my boss to take me back and have my old job again. Thankfully, they accepted me, I had my job back, and me quitting looked like it didn’t really happened (unemployed for technically only 2 weeks, over Christmas vacation).

Me quitting the job was the biggest and most humbling decision I’ve made in my life (so far). I was with the company for 3 years, and I learned so much from it, and the reason I quit my job because part of me wants to grow more as a programmer. I was very excited to start my freelance career, but it got shot down so bad very quickly. I was devastated and scared at that point, and I didn’t know what else to do. Then I have my only option to ask for my old job back, and just swallowed a big chunk of pride, face my old colleagues that I already bid goodbye. I was grateful, and it was truly humbling. I learned that decisions you make doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to be. It was a splash of reality on my face that there are always risks when making big decisions, and it so happens that I was able to dodge a huge bullet of being jobless. Way to start a year.

I realized I did not think it through a lot, and I was risking more. It would’ve been hard if I didn’t get my job back, and I could not imagine myself where I’m at now if I was not taken back. It taught me a lot about making life decisions. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of thinking, and months of planning to make these kind of decisions. You have to be really sure, and always have a plan B when everything goes wrong. Cover all possible scenarios what will happen if you decide on something, list the pros and cons, and all the things that will benefit and harm from that decision. In my case, I was not ready for that and clearly, it was rushed. A lot of things went over my head that time. I was pressured by my suppose to be team from that project, that I needed to be full-time to make it happen. It was also an emotional year for me that I wanted to get out, and start something new. So it was a poorly made decision, that resulted to a traumatizing experience.

2 years has passed, and I’m happy with what I’m doing now. I’ve grown a lot working at Caresharing in the past 5 years (I added the pre and post quitting, so technically 5). It was my first job out of college, and they taught and molded me a lot to become what I am right now, as a programmer, a leader, and a human being. But it won’t stop me from pursuing something to take a step forward on my career, be it with the same company I have now, from other companies (here or abroad), or maybe from my own start-up. Who knows, right? It’s all about patience and perseverance. Decision-making is not always rainbows and unicorns. It’s most of the time battling dragons and creating strategies to attack dungeons. As for me, I’m taking one step at a time making sure I’m not going to create the same mistakes again. One failure is not the end of everything, but instead make it a stepping stone to doing things right the next time.

Edit:

Some people told me I could’ve made a different option and still pursued my freelancing. Yes I could have, but I didn’t want to risk it. It dawned on me at the time that I wasn’t really ready. I only jumped in the wagon because I had an offer already, so I wouldn’t starve after I quit. But then it didn’t happen, so I made a conscious decision to go to plan B, which was to get my job back. And I’m glad that I made the decision because that year also, my dad suffered from stroke, and because of that I was able to loan money from the company for the hospital bills and medicine. If I relied on my money from freelancing (if I had), I wouldn’t have provided enough support for my dad to recover. So I guess it was good decision.