I Quit My Job at the Age of 36 to Be Happy

Hi! my name is O. I am the founder of Goodnight Journal, where people come to write their own private and public journals. In this blog article, I want to share my own story about quitting my job and working on the app that I’m passionate about while traveling.

I quit my job to be happy to live the life that I want. I’m traveling around South America to see the different cities, people, and cultures while working on the app that I have running from 2013. Goodnight Journal may not help people to get to Mars, but it surely can help people to live a better life by expressing themselves through writing along with other benefits of keeping a journal. And to be honest, I cannot express how happy I am to be able to work on this app.

I knew that quitting the job was a risky move. Yet, no one can deny the fact that every radical chance requires some risk-taking. At a certain moment, I knew that I had to do this. Deep down, I knew that there is something inside of me that keeps telling me to pursue what I want. To live by my own rules; not the ones of others. And I knew that if don’t do it now, I may not be able to do it at all. So, I took the risk. I did it.

I’m in the middle of my journey as I’m writing this, and if there is one thing that I’m sure about, it would be that: I’m very happy and feel fortunate for doing what I want to do for my life.

I grew up in an environment where people go to college and work for a company until they retire. Where it’s normal to work from 10 AM to 6 PM, Monday to Friday and spend the rest of the time with family or do things that they like. It is still hard more me to think outside of the box that I might be able to live without living a life that most people around me have.

However, I’m so glad that I took the first step. After giving it much thought, I decided to invest in my 7 years old project for the next 3 months and travel around South America. I was anticipating this moment for the last couple of years. And when the time came, I was able to move right away.

What makes me happy?

I believe that every one of you has a different way to find happiness. For me, I always wanted to travel and see the world with freedom and work on the project that I’m truly passionate about. Working for someone even with a very laid-back work environment will still restrict you from traveling freely. Now, I can travel at my own will at least for the next 12 more months as I’m financially independent.

I spent many years working on work-related products that I wasn’t necessarily passionate about. I wasn’t even sure if those products were helping people to live a better life or not. However, I won’t deny that it was a good experience for me, to learn new things and to experiment with them in the real world.

But what I wanted is to test if I can use all of the skills that I have acquired to grow my project and see if I can make it work or not.

I’m doing it now. And, to be frank with you, I’m not afraid to fail at all. Being able to do all of this, makes me very happy.

Where am I now?

I traveled to Buenos Aires and spent the last week in Sao Paulo. I was lucky enough to meet so many different people and experience lots of things with Mulheres Bonita. It’s always fascinating to see how all people live and think in the same way while looking at life from different perspectives. I also launched my brand-new app for Goodnight Journal and have been working on it to improve it. I can’t say that I’m 100% happy with what I launch, but I’m happy for having the necessary background to make it one of the greatest apps. I will make sure to spend my time to improve it and scale it to the next level. Hopefully, it will get me the needed financial freedom which will allow me to focus more on the app in the future.

GoodnightJournal.com homepage

In terms of financial freedom, I’m not even close to my goal of 5,000 paid users and I have only a month left out of the time that I gave to myself. I can stay longer but I don’t want to drain my savings account to zero. It is not that I expected to have 5,000 users right from the beginning and I always expected to work toward my goal continuously and slowly build up to it even if I had to get another job to keep my cash flow going.

This is my goal, this is my passion. And I will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

What’s the plans for the future?

I’m a simple person, and I love to take it and make it simple. I’m planning on continuing my traveling journey and keep working on the app. I still got two more cities to visit and I’m super excited about it. I will also make sure to do my best to make my app better and I won’t be disappointed or regret what I’m doing even if my app does not work out at the end. I will continue to work on it and still find other ways to live.

I will also move to New York City when I come back to Los Angeles because this is the city that I always wanted to live in to continue doing what I’m doing.

It sucks that everything we do nowadays really depend on money and I can’t avoid that. I will probably have to go back to my old life and do things that I’m used to doing. However, I’m very happy that I’m doing this now and I will try my best to get this going as long as possible.

What makes you happy and are you doing the things that make you happy?