First my job, then my passion, killed my soul… but I found it again too
By: Alex Thurley-Ratcliff
Tags: Choices, Passion, Life Lessons, Stress

Three years ago I lost my job … after 27 years in business consulting. So I became a grill cook, then a chef, then a head chef.

I was earning big money and heartily sick of it all. I felt it was truly pointless; a consultant in corporate HR communications, spinning the latest initiative from the high-ups to ensure the employees got the message, got on board, got engaged.

It coincided with a major tumult in my life — not an altogether unhappy one it turned out, and I will write about that separately — but deep turmoil, emotional and spiritual and that bleak staring into the depths of my soul to decide how to go on. I was getting a max 4 hours sleep a night, just forcing myself to go to work, do work well enough; I was driving recklessly, drinking too much when I got home, then playing very mindless computer games, avoiding, avoiding…

So when I was made redundant after a company sell-off (and sell-out), I realised I had literally no stomach to look for similar work. I couldn’t do it. I physically felt like I’d throw up simply by thinking about a new high-powered job. I got minimum redundancy pay (our company was taken over by a US firm, which speaks volumes) and I’d separated from my wife the year before. I was living in a dead relative’s house rent free, getting the minimum social security income, eating vegetables rejected by supermarkets and spending £20 a week on bare essentials.

I was so totally happy. I planted trees and vegetables; I discovered yoga and dance; I ran half-marathons. I made friends with people from 20 to 70 and volunteered here and there. I cycled and walked and discovered all the things that cursed job had robbed from me.

True, I had been released from the daily trauma of old choices I had made but could no longer live under; I was now free to be myself so it was a heady time, my teenage years at last.

I had no belief I would make it either. It was intense, scary, confusing, vibrant. I made new friends quickly and turned mostly vegan; my love of cooking led me to people and then into a new career that paid 5% of what I had earned before. I became a 51 year old noob. The junior with a grey beard.

I started flipping burgers then worked in hotels, got a full-time post and eventually ended up at the start of 2018 as a head chef in an award-winning new vegan restaurant.

And it was tough. Not the hours (bad enough), or the physical demands (standing up for 10+ hours a day without a break), or the new things I just didn’t know (almost all of it). It was the existential fear of being rubbish at something I was passionate about; the feeling of faking it coupled with an intense addiction to the love of doing it; and the emotional ups and downs, the friendships, the mistakes, the times I made them cry and the times I cried.

But in the end the work mix just wasn’t right — I was deeply unhappy. Intense nightmares on days before my shifts; migraines at work and the slightest thing sent me over the edge. There were reasons — a boss who was absent, uncommunicative and unhelpful; financial pressures (vegan restaurants are pretty rare in this neck of the woods — so not everyone “got it”) and customers were scarce.

I held on for months — I couldn’t let go of the dream. This was my passion. I’d staked everything on this. I was the head chef for crying out loud. I should be able to cope. What does it say if I leave…

I realised that I wasn’t in the right place. I didn’t want to be head chef at the place I worked. (One day I do want to create an inspiring plant-based and sustainable restaurant; but that’ll have to wait.) And my life had gone on hold once again — this time to serve this ideal of my passion for great food, for vegan cuisine, for sustainability and connection to the planet. I had no time for exercise or art. I had stopped writing for myself; stopped performing and stopped socialising. Once again I was just, barely, existing to work.

For the 27 years prior I had done something I never really loved. Then I did the thing I had always wanted to do. I used my savings to subsidise the poor pay so that I could learn quickly. I learnt massively and loved much of it… and I also found out all the ways I don’t want to do it.

It took so much to let go — it hurt deeply to recognise this wasn’t working for me. I resigned with only enough money in the bank to pay for six weeks’ rent. I have four mouths to feed — and no job to go to.

Needs must — today I accepted a role as an interim internal communications manager for the local Council. It’s double what I earned as a chef (which seems a travesty) and it’s back in an office 9–5 weekdays. It’s very local, which is a plus, but I’m wondering how it’ll feel; can I cope with the internal politics, sitting down all day, petty pressures? Cheffing is a lively job and I love the physicality, the dynamism and the nerves needed to run the pass, creating and plating beautiful food, seeing customers excited, delighted by my work, I love the banter with the staff, the camaraderie of late night clean down and drinks after work.

So am I screwed? Given a choice between the job I can do that pays or the job I love which doesn’t pay? And fearful of the effect my bad choices have made on my very best self.

Because along the way, these last three years have helped me learn where my soul truly lies. Not in the childhood faith I happily let go, not in the externals of money or status — but in myself. I have twice left careers which destroyed my soul. I’m going back in, better equipped, more knowledgeable about when to get out; more conscious of what matters; more free to focus on the friends, places and ideas that really endure — not the corporate spin, the bottom line, the grumpy restaurateur or the lack of support.

I am optimistic, hopeful and idealistic. I’m on the edge of the plane and ready to jump… I hope the parachute opens (oh, and that’s also another, true, story which kicked this all off five years ago!).