Quitting

I have decided to leave my profession. It's something I have been thinking about for quite some time now. I've essentially been a mortgage broker since I got out of college. I obtained my MBA in there and had my children, but essentially I have been doing the same thing.

My heart has not been in it for a long time. I have been thinking of getting out for a while, but I could not think of anything else that had the flexibility with my two young children.

I still don't have any firm plans. But I feel like what is required of me now is too much of an emotional and spiritual drain to keep going on. I am better getting out, setting my priorities and making a better choice.

I did something similar when I started doing mortgages. I had been in insurance and hated it. I probably would have stayed just to have a job, but I got laid off. That was about the best thing that happened to me.

It allowed me some space to discover something new.

The mortgage industry was very good to me for many years. But once my heart was no longer in it, nothing would have made me successful.

I have always struggled with the concept of Interest as a Muslim. I have always been interested in Islamic Finance and have thought about going into that as well. But those models still too closely resemble the Western ones, and we may never return to how it was intended to be.

I feel good about the work that I did. I was an honest person in a profession that is often dishonest. I know I helped a lot of people and I never did not help someone when there was not money in it for me. I never made money on something that was dishonest or inequitable.

But at the end of the day, I would like to do something with more meaning.

I am a bad person for this profession right now because I believe most of what the media tells people is garbage. I don't think our economy is recovering. I don't think it is a good time to buy a house. I don't think most people should buy houses. I don't think most people should refinance. The ones who really need help are not getting help from our systems. The only people that get any consideration from anyone are those who have money and can generate money for the banks and their sales people.

I know some people don't agree with helping those who are underwater, but as someone who has done mortgages for along time, I think that we have to. Most people had no idea what they were signing on for. And not that our dumbed-down culture makes an excuse for them, but most financial professionals did not understand the loans either. They understood their commission.

But that's a whole other tangent....

The bottom line is I've decided to move on and I'm excited for whatever comes next.