I Quit My Job 4 Months Ago to Start from Zero

Here is my story and what kept me motivated.

I quit my job 4 months ago but there is a long and sometimes secret process behind this decision.

I think that one of the most critical steps of this process belongs to my university years.

I was a computer science student.

We were asked for a senior project before we graduated from the university. And I had two main interests: psychology and religion.

Both of these areas made a huge impact on my life and they still do. 

The idea of a chatbot that helps people in these two areas showed up as a senior project idea on those days.

It was 2018. There is no ChatGPT, no other GPT. (GPT1 was about to be released.) 

When we went to our AI instructor, he simply told us we couldn’t do it. I was still willing to try but my project mates were not.

We built another AI project that helps to protect abused children and we won an award with it. 

Here is the student website of the project if you are curious (I warn you there are only project reports on the website.) and here is a nice intro video.

I graduated.

I graduated in January 2019, in the middle of the academic year. So, I thought I could have some time with my family and fix some family issues. 

And I can decide what to do next.

Then, I want to continue my master’s degree and create my chatbot project.

I wanted to leave Turkey because I was not feeling good with my hijab. 

(Yes, Turkey is a Muslim country and you can still feel bad about your hijab. Because being Muslim doesn’t mean living Islam truly. Here, I refer to tolerating and understanding everyone when I say ‘living Islam truly’.)

I talked to professors about my project in Malaysia, applied to universities and I was accepted by one of them. The money issue existed at that point. I didn’t want to force my family.

Meanwhile, I had some crucial psychological problems that made me do nothing. I can’t leave Turkey, I can’t go Malaysia, there are other health issues… So, I was quite depressed.

In those days, I was trying to feel better writing poetry on Medium.

Empty
A poem on how to fill an empty life…medium.com

I started my job.

When I was that bad, my sister told me to apply for a job to just distract myself.

I was trying everything to feel better. So I tried to apply for a job.

One of my university friends was wearing the hijab and she was working in a participation bank. 

(When we talked about jobs in the university, I was saying I don’t know but I won’t work somewhere like banks. I was almost a mystic person with my interest areas. I want to help people with their psychology, and religion and for a better life. What am I supposed to do in a bank?)

Normally a bank wouldn’t be even the last option for me but I was really bad and I applied to just distract myself.

Then I started working at this bank as a data scientist or we can say AI Engineer (the terms were not really distinctive).

The first 6 months were great. I felt as if I was in heaven. And this was all about the people. 

The friendship environment was great compared to my university where individuality is at the forefront.

However, after 6 months the pandemic showed up.

We started working at home.

I got married.

The friendship environment lost its importance since we rarely went to the office.

I kept predicting the incomes, frauds, and credit card limits of people for 3 more years in the bank. 

During this time the business part was more prominent compared to friendship. And it was really tormenting for me. 

I was already thinking about quitting my job. My mind was on my chatbot project.

1.5 years ago (after working 2.5 years in the bank), I was trying to get my motivation to quit my job by writing on Medium.

How To Make Your Complete To-Do List To Feel Great at the Beginning of Your Freelancer Life
Focus on what excites you, here is what excites me as a FREE AI Engineermedium.com

I quit my job to start from zero.

Even 1.5 years ago, I was quite decided. However, it is not easy to quit your job, your good income, your good environment and start from zero.

So, it took some time to arrange our financial situation. 

I was also trying to prepare myself mentally.

I was afraid of feeling empty when I quit my job.

ChatGPT showed up in November 2022. 

I started my checklist in December 2022. This checklist was really important and I still use it.

I want to talk about it more because it was what kept me from going overboard on anything or kept me constant in something.

I was preparing a little page in a week. On the top are days of the week and on the left side are things I want to do daily.

In the first versions of my checklist, there were 10–12 items such as reading the Quran, doing sports, reading books, doing research, etc. 

Each was between 10–30 minutes items.

There was nothing technical because I was still working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a regular job.

For 4 months, I continued my checklist with slow improvements.

I believe that helped me a lot with consistency, self-control, etc.

I quit my job in April 2023.

I was planning to learn Flutter and make it easy to build mobile apps and reach people with mobile apps.

However, in a short time, I understand that javascript and websites are more suitable for me.

After I quit my job, I did some exercises on that. 

I also worked on Python and using LLMs on Python.

Then today came.

I have 5 simple project ideas in my mind now. I am impatient to try them immediately. 

However, 4 months passed and I have no income. 

These four months with no income were not too difficult and not too easy.

It was not difficult because I think I have a high adaptation ability. So, I quickly adapted to a life with less money. 

It was not too easy because I don’t live alone and I keep thinking about the future. 

Nowadays, I figured out the projects and companies that support initiatives. For them, I need to set up my startup company.

In this week’s plan, there is this item to set up my startup company and apply for some funds.

I will be sharing the process with you insha’Allah.

What kept me motivated during this time?

My motivation is very obvious.

It is about how I perceive life.

The Creator who is the most powerful and the most compassionate created me and everything else.

The reason for my creation is to know and then love My Creator.

The reason for the creation of this world is an exam.

If you pass the exam you will be eternally happy.

To pass the exam, you should live for the sake of Allah.

The best part is that your intention is everything.

You don’t need to be successful. 

Just get your intention and put your effort into it. 

The result is not your job, it is The Creator’s job. 

So, I am sure about my intention and the difficulties I faced are part of the exam.

As long as I am doing what I am doing for the sake of Allah, good things will happen for me although it looks bad today.

So, I am still quite motivated to set up my startup. 

Thank you for your reading.