In February of 2003, I found myself physically and emotionally exhausted, sitting at home in isolation suffering from extreme burn out and whooping cough – under quarantine from the center for disease control. Whooping cough is a virus that usually only affects children and the elderly, but I’d been pushing myself way too hard at a job I didn’t really believe in or gain satisfaction from.

I was a software developer working for a company that builds back-end tax software, and I’d been working for months at about 70-80 hours per week. Some days I would work through the night and not get home until 10 or 11 the next morning. It seems crazy now.

While sitting at home alone waiting in futility for my “100 day cough” to subside, something snapped. I started looking at flights. I wanted to get away from my job, my life, everything that I had become, and reinvent myself. I wanted something more meaningful. I didn’t really know what it was I wanted at that time, but I knew I wanted out.

And out I got. I quit my job, cashed in my savings (about $20,000 at that time), and flew to India on an open ended trip. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself, leaving a situation that I knew deep down was wrong for me.

I ended up spending the next sixteen months traveling and living around Asia, contemplating my life and thinking about the way forward. It was a formative time, and full of revelation, freedom, self-exploration, and the building of resolve.

I came back intending to engage the world more actively and constructively in something that was more aligned with my values.

I feel aligned right now, highly intrinsically motivated, and overall – happy. I’ve got a lot of really great people in my life, and feel humbled to be surrounded by so much great work.

Knock on wood.