I Quit My Well-Paying Job

Again with this topic?

So recently I had the chance to go back to my teaching job, with even more benefits and job security. Basically, my future was secure. Yet I turned it down. Let me explain:
For those who have been following my YouTube Channel for a while now might be surprised to see an article about my teaching job. In episode 17 I already made a video about how I finally quit my teaching job, so why are we back on this topic? Well, because something quite interesting happened during the time I quit and now.

Mistakes were made

You see, for all these years I wasn’t teaching history at the same school. I’d work at one school for a year and then would move on to the next. Although we are struggling with a shortage of teachers here in Holland, this doesn’t apply to my expertise: history. So all of the teaching jobs I took were for a pre-determent amount of time in order to replace someone else.
Now the current high school I work for was employing me for a second year, but was in fact planning on giving me the boot after that as well due to my burn-out. They’d rather employ a healthy person instead. And since my contract was for a pre-determent amount of time they could get away with this.
But here is the twist: they made a mistake. Last year, at the start of the new school year, they were supposed to offer me a real contract, allowing me to stay indefinitely if I wanted to. Now I won’t bother you with the boring details, but as you can imagine, this changed the situation for me.

Onizuka from the anime 'Great Teacher Onizuka'

Now what?

I had already said my goodbyes to my students and colleagues a month prior though, and now this bomb was dropped out of the blue. I was now presented with 2 choices: 1. Remain a teacher, get way better benefits, a bonus and job security 2. Pretend like this never happened and phase out of the company. Everyone around me encouraged me to take option number one. Who would turn down such a great opportunity?! Better benefits, a bonus and job security to boot. You’d be mad not to take it, right?
But guess what? I didn’t choose option number 1. I chose option number 2. I’m going to pretend like this never happened and will be phasing out of the company starting from August 2025. Call me crazy, but I’m done with it. I know there’s a big chance I will never get paid as well as I am now. I also know I won’t ever get the benefits I’ll have now. And I also know it’ll take a long time before I find something with the same job security. But that’s okay. I’m fine with all of these insecurities right now.

My friend

The main reason I decided to quit is actually because of a good friend of mine. We always go on long walks together in the forests that surround our town and naturally that leads to a lot of talking along the way. When I told him about the two options I was presented with he was the only person out of many that actually told me to choose option 2, instead of the most obvious option. “You’ve been talking about wanting to travel the world for 10 years now. This is your chance to start fresh and actually go through with it. Just do it already!” is what he said. That opened my eyes! He was right. For 10 years I’ve been talking about wanting to travel the world. For 10 years I’ve been saying how cool it would be to teach English as an ALT in Japan for a while, to work remotely in Bangkok as a Full Stack Web Developer and to eventually live the Digital Nomad lifestyle. But where was I? Stuck in a teaching job I hated in my hometown.

This was, indeed, the best opportunity I’d ever get to escape. And so I decided to turn down the best paying job I’ll probably ever get. My first goal is to go on vacation to Japan for 3 weeks. Once there, if I get the same good feeling I always do when I’m there, I’ll get an ALT job somewhere in the Kansai region, preferably Kyoto or Osaka for a year. I’ll also continue learning how to code, which I have been doing diligently for quite a while now because eventually I’d like to get a fully remote full stack web development position.

Onizuka from the anime 'Great Teacher Onizuka' smoking and crying

My goals

I always thought that it was important to know exactly what I was going to do for the upcoming years, but after my burn-out I’m starting to realize that all of the things that were bringing me security in life were bad for me. Not financially of course, but mentally. They stopped me from chasing my dreams. So in this video I’m going to list my current goals so that, if in the future, I start to doubt myself again, I can look back at this video and see what I truly want. Not for the far future, but for the next couple of years:
  1. Go to Japan for 3 weeks
  2. Get an ALT job in Japan in the Kansai region preferably
  3. Continue learning how to code within the web development niche
  4. Get a fully remote web development job
  5. Become a digital nomad and move to South-East Asia for a year or so

The future

I don’t know what comes after that, but you know what? That’s fine. Life is to be enjoyed and living in the moment feels a lot better than all of the security my past self was living in. And to those watching this video whom feel stuck in life too, I’d like to advice you to do the same as I did: save up some money, quit the job you hate, and do whatever it is that you want to do within reason, both financially and ethically.

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Have a great rest of your day!