You can leave if you want to
Why people don't leave stressful jobs, and sometimes don't even realize how stressed they are.
Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
– Maggie Smith, “Good Bones”
My resting heart rate is 59. One morning, after checking my work email, I re-checked my heart rate. It was over 100. It should not have taken me 6 months to realize that this is unhealthy, but it did.
In the last 3 months I have had over a dozen conversations with people who are unhappy at their companies, and who state in certain terms that they “cannot” leave. They always add “...right now.”
Until recently, I was in the same situation — a job that had once been good had become stressful to the point of spilling into everything else (despite it being no one’s “fault,” despite bringing career opportunities, despite managers willing to work with me on burnout, and coworkers who I genuinely liked and plan to stay in touch with).
It took at least 6 months to realize I needed a change, and even then I didn’t fully appreciate my own situation.
Making a change changed a lot:
I am eating more regularly (i.e. not skipping lunch) and healthier
I sleep better
I exercise more, and can do my physical therapy during the day
I read more, and have more energy for other things I enjoy
Conversations are better — before I was afraid to talk about work because it would bring down the mood, but also I didn’t have much else to talk about. Now I can talk about work again (not that my friends understand what my job is), and also all the new non-work things I have going on.
I’m better at my job! I’m learning so much and being way more productive.
I am lighter and freer than before
I fully did not appreciate that these changes would come alongside switching roles. They are, for the most part, pleasant surprises.
A less pleasant surprise is the number of people I’m talking to with similar experiences. They are unhappy. Every day, they are annoyed or frustrated. The stress has built gradually, which hides the fact that this is not healthy or normal. The reasons they give for not being able to leave sound eerily familiar — in one conversation, even giving me the same hot flash I used to get when checking my email in the morning.
So what is this that you’re reading? A manifesto? A confession? A plea to resign?
Maaaan...idk. Mostly I want to share what these situations have in common — the patterns I see and felt myself — and let anyone in a similar situation know that it’s ok.
You can leave if you want to.
What do these people have in common? “You could make this place beautiful,” and the dangers of personal responsibility
I see four themes come up over and over. Two are stated directly and two are more implied.
When I talk to people who are burning out, they know that they are stressed but cite two reasons they can’t leave:
“I feel like I can fix this”
“I’m worried that leaving will hurt coworkers I like”
It’s heavy, because the people I’m talking to are top performers. They are real good at their shit.
Part of the reason they are so good is that they have embraced personal responsibility — or “extreme ownership” or whichever buzzword you wanna call it. Whatever the name, these people have a profound, deep-seated, utterly ingrained belief in their ability to change the world around them.
Isn’t that beautiful?
I think it’s amazing. It sings of optimism. And as a result of that optimism, I hear, over and over, phrases like “we’re putting together a new plan” or “I think the next two weeks will be big” or “I really think this next project could turn things around.”
I hear these people talk about how they just want to stop the ship from rocking, or how they can build a new foundation — there’s always hope (and it is always in a 2 week to 3 month time frame) that the next project, the next idea, the next piece of work to shoulder will make everything better.
The same idea is behind the coworkers thing. If you feel that you, personally, are perpetually 1-3 months away from a fix, then of course you think that leaving will leave your coworkers in the lurch.
Of course the painful truth is that there is no next fix. The problem will still be here in 3 months because it’s a problem with a system — it requires changing rooted structures that are beyond the ability of an individual to change.
What makes this hard for you, a top performer, is that some of the fixes are so obvious. You think “this place could be beautiful if only X were different.”
But of course if X were going to be different, it already would be. A system creates its own output — one of the principles of systems theory is that systems (by definition!) are perfectly designed to create what that they are currently creating.
Do I think that systems can never change? No, of course they can change.
I’m saying only that change, once the problem is severe, is outside the power of an individual. It takes coordination, willingness to ask hard questions, and a hard look at underlying feedback loops — and if you’ve reached the point where you break a sweat from checking your email, the change will not happen fast enough to save you.
The other 2: Getting out, and the hidden beliefs that prevent it
The catch-22 is that it is hard to see how negative the situation is until you are out of the situation.
Hey — it’s not healthy to be annoyed, frustrated, or angry for a big chunk of most days. Does that sound obvious? Maybe, but it creeps up on you.
It wasn’t until I had energy in the evenings (to work out, to read, to get drinks, to play games, to practice piano) that I realized — “huh, maybe it’s not so good to leave work and the only thing you want to do is lie on the floor moaning.”
This was after I had already left! I imagine it will be years, if ever, before I fully understand the impact of the change.
What I hear from the people I’ve spoken to (but what they do not say outright) is…
“Sure it’s not great, but this is normal and I can deal with it”
“At least I know how this place works. What if someplace else is worse?”
I hear these underlying beliefs. “Every place is like this.” “I’m strong enough to handle it.” “Frustration is the cost of growth.”
“Every place is like this.” → Many places are, it’s true. Not every place. Don’t you deserve a better place?
“I’m strong enough to handle it.” → I believe, dear reader, that you are possessed of incredible mental and emotional strength. If there were an emotional strength deadlift, you’d crush Halfthor Bjornsson’s record without trying.
You may indeed be strong enough to handle it, but is it worth it? Should you have to? Wouldn’t you be happier and more successful in an environment that supported your growth, your personal life, and your emotional health? Imagine all the things you want to do that aren’t work, and how your situation at work is affecting them right now.
“Frustration is the cost of growth.” → Of course growth can be hard. I believe in hard work. I believe that effort is “the price that unlocks everything beautiful in the world,” and there will always be hard things that can be faced with growth as their outcome.
This isn’t a manifesto for avoiding hard things; it’s a manifesto for avoiding things that are hard for stupid reasons.
Burnout doesn’t come from intractable intellectual problems. It doesn’t come from you facing the challenge that will advance you to your next form. It comes from bureaucracy, lack of autonomy, lack of direction, lack of trust, false urgency, and the resulting inability to focus on what matters.
Growth can include frustration; does it have to include the type of frustration you’re currently experiencing?
Ultimately, you will be the one to decide what’s right for you. You know your situation, and I won’t try to talk you out of it.
What I will ask — how much of your reluctance to leave is fear of change?
And if any of the above has felt familiar, see if these questions help:
What would make you feel comfortable leaving? Is there anything?
What do you think will happen after you leave? What about 3 months, 6 months, a year later?
How is work stress spilling into your life? What did things look like before this work stress started? How is it different?
What are you not able to do (or putting aside, “maybe in a few months”) because you’re stressed or tired from work?
I won’t pretend this is clear-cut. I left after 3 years and 8 months, and only the last 6 months got rough (I still generally think well of the place I left). How soon is too soon to leave? What’s the trade-off of growth and stress? These are personal questions with personal answers.
For me, it was time. The choice was right. If you’re doubting, the first step is to explore what leaving looks like. Regardless of your choice, it will be easier to make if you have a plan to follow and understand your options. Challenge the belief that change isn’t possible, and it becomes easier to change.
This struck a deep chord. Especially your explanation of "deep ownership" the tradeoff between stress and growth. Heck, even reading this and realizing someone else face the same issue is cleansing. Thank you for writing this @Benyamin, it's powerful.