Looking sideways

I remember a long time ago that I read a text from a famous Brazilian columnist, which I tried multiple times to find again but with no success, where she talked about the freedom of being married. But it was not the freedom from her partner she was referring to. No, she was talking about the pressure society puts on women to meet prince charming, fall in love, get married, have and raise kids. She was arguing that, now that she has done everything society expected from her, she was free to do whatever she wanted with her life. This idea came back to me recently, when I was reading about some comedian who discussed leaving a TV show after a long tenure. He said something very interesting, which I haven't really considered so far: it was his lifelong dream to work in this particular TV show, and when he was about to leave, he was scared for the future, but he knew he's done it. He achieved his childhood dream, so even if everything from now on would not work out entirely how he ...

 There are many reasons I left my previous job, and I don't know if I could rank these reasons in order of importance. There was also great things about that job, and I thought long and hard before I made the decision to go. Ultimately, my mental health was the biggest deciding factor. I was not happy there, and it was time to change. Change is good, exciting, but it can also be scary. So I weighed my options, researched, thought long and hard about it. I'm not a gambler, and when I gamble, I tend to be very conservative with my bets. I am fully aware that the payout will be much lower when the risk is lower, and I'm ok with that. I tend to think long term, and the long term gains are better suited for me. So I bet on something that was a sure win, even if it meant taking a step down in my career. I thought I knew what I was doing, and I thought it would be ok. I knew I would come across some difficult times, but ultimately the excitement of something new won. I was wrong. ...