Which straw breaks the camel’s back?

In the last couple of years, a lot of people have been quitting their jobs because the harsh conditions of the pandemic made them realize that they’re not doing what they want to do with their lives (or they’re not making enough for it to be worth it, which is also a valid concern).

There are any number of reasons one could choose to quit their job. The most obvious ones are under-compensation and toxic work environments. If going to work every day feels like a march toward the edge of a cliff, that’s probably a bad sign, all the worse if you’re getting paid peanuts to do it. Of course, even if you only have one of those concerns, and you make great money in a lousy environment or have a great environment and make nothing, you’re still well within your rights to want to quit.

Many people quit their jobs when they feel like they’re not being appropriately challenged in their work or they’re otherwise not making the most effective use of their skillset. It’s very common to go for a job that’s only tangentially related to what you’re good at with the assumption you’ll move on to something more relevant later, and then you blink and ten years have passed. If you feel like your skills could be better used elsewhere, both for your personal enrichment and the sake of your bank account, it’s absolutely worth pursuing that.

Granted, while it’s not the nicest way to put it, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with complacency. If you like where you are, even if not’s challenging to you, then that’s fine. You don’t always need to actively search out the thorny path. It’s nice when things are straightforward and understandable; I like being in a rut, personally. But if you want more out of life, then higher opportunities aren’t going to fall in your lap. You gotta search them out, and that starts with leaving your dead-end job.