There have been a handful of times in my life where I have been faced with two clear, and very distinct, options. Choosing either would alter the direction of my life significantly.

We all have examples of this. For me, the biggest forks in my proverbial road of life (so far) have been when I had to decide between staying with my college boyfriend, or getting back together with my high school sweetheart; deciding to move to London for my Master’s degree instead of finding an entry level job after college; and there have been multiple instances where, after months of dilligently job searching, I was offered two jobs at the same time.

The first time that I felt like I took control and made a huge decision for myself was when I was debating on which career path to take after I had finished grad school. I was working in London and was offered a creative job in a public relations agency and a technical job working in digital advertising. I took the PR job, and I’m glad I did, although I was quickly disillusioned by the work.

The second time that I was faced with a career fork in the road was in the height of the COVID pandemic. I was back in the States, and working a terrible call center job from home, while I spent countless hours everyday applying to jobs, fruitlessly, of course, as nearly every company was on a hiring freeze. After thorough interview processes, I was again offered two roles: a business analyst at a financial technology company, or a business development role at a rehabilitation center. The latter was much more closely linked to my two degrees in Psychology, but the former paid significantly more.

I chose the analyst role in the financial technology company. And there came a day when I realized how much I regretted that decision.

Regret is perhaps not the right word. I try not to really regret any of my decisions because they all lead to lessons one way or another. But that job made me pretty miserable. It was a toxic work environment, but I put off leaving because I knew how tough the job search would be.

I stayed in a state of limbo for nearly 6 months, waiting for a job that I hated to get less hateful, until I finally decided that it was worth it to put my energy into the also hateful job search.

When I finally pulled the trigger, there was no going back. I had that moment of checking out from the job when I knew I couldn’t be happy there. And the search was definitely tough, but I’m much happier on this side of the road.