end of a season

Yesterday was my last day as a financial services strategy consultant.*

No more lucrative year end bonuses. No more free museum passes and theatre discounts. No more fancy four course dinners. No more platinum status at 5 star hotels with marble countertops. No more $3000 monthly rent apartments in the ritziest part of town. No more racking up crazy amounts of airline miles. No more dimmed window, white glove driver, black car services. No more living on company expenses. No more guaranteed top business school admission.

I have decided to leave the fast-track to success and financial stability.
I feel free.*

Two years and I could have paid off all my debt. Three years and I could have saved up enough money to go to graduate school. Four years and maybe I could even be fairly well off and probably able to get a good lucrative job in management at any financial services firm.

It would have been good. But what good would that have done me?

So I am cutting myself off from that which does not give me life, before I am wined and dined to death.

* I reiterate: often times the best choices in life are the ones you are most afraid are taking. I have the privilege of choice. (I was not born into poverty nor slavery. I was born into a loving and well-educated family). That choice is not be whittled away on choosing security over joy.