Last week, my sister did something I had waited 15 years to witness.
After 21 years, she finally quit her job.
She is four years younger than me. I’ve always been the risk-taker; she’s always preferred security.
We grew up in the same family but took very different paths. I left home for boarding high school, went to college in another city, and three years after graduation, left China for the United States. My sister stayed close to home.
I’ve always been a rebel, refusing to follow the path my parents carefully mapped out for me. They wanted me to work for the same company they worked for and marry a highly educated, reliable man—preferably one wearing glasses. In my parents’ eyes, the thicker the glasses, the better educated the man—and therefore, the more secure my life would be.
My sister followed the plan. She took the job my father arranged for her and married someone she met at the company. She might have lived the same secure life my parents did—until I talked her into coming to America to see the world.
Her landing in America was much softer than mine. She didn’t have to waitress and walk home in the snow at midnight like I did. She didn’t have to stay awake all night worrying about how she would pay rent, nor did she have to settle for a crummy apartment. My parents gave her money, and she stayed at my home.
A few years later, I helped her find an internship that led to the company she worked at for the past 21 years. Even after I dragged her halfway around the world, my security-loving sister somehow managed to find security again.
And she probably would have stayed there until retirement. Except something began to change about seven years ago.
Every afternoon, she became so exhausted that she fell asleep at six o’clock. Two hours later, she would wake up, cook dinner, and open her laptop again until two in the morning. At six that same morning, she started all over.
Dinner was sometimes served at 10 p.m. She and her husband argued, and frustration from work followed her home, spreading through the family.
She was miserable. She interviewed with another company, but received no offer.
“People can smell your frustration from ten miles away,” I told her. “Who wants to hire that person? You have to quit your job first. Clear your mind so you can see and receive other opportunities.”
I kept telling her that for years, but she wouldn’t do it. Security was too important.
Then, last week, something changed and she finally did it. She quit.
“Maybe I’ll look for another job after I rest for a month,” she told me.
I smiled. She doesn’t know it yet, but I have a feeling that once she tastes freedom, she may not want that old life back.
I know something about that. Fourteen years ago, I quit my corporate finance job to spend more time with my son. I ventured into real estate. I flipped houses. I lost money. I lost homes to foreclosure.
There were times when I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I missed the security. I regretted leaving.
Then I started over. Little by little, I climbed out of the financial debris and built my property management business. Today, my business gives me something my corporate job never could: security and freedom.
For most of our lives, my sister and I stood on opposite sides. I chose risk; she chose security. Neither of us was wrong. We simply needed different things at different times in our lives.
When we are young, we build security. Later, we begin to crave freedom and adventure—a chance to find out who we are when we’re no longer living according to somebody else’s plan.
My sister thinks she’s taking a month off. I think she may be standing at the beginning of something much larger.
She spent 21 years building a secure life. Now she gets to find out what freedom feels like.
