To Stay, or to Move On?

[fcgamer]

Like many of the others here on FW, my life has been in a rut lately as well.  I always get this way around December...the colder days, longer nights, and being stuck in a building during most of the daylight hours just zaps away my energy and makes me feel melancholic.  I suspect that next year some serious changes might be occurring in my life, and that is why I come to ask, should I stay, or is it time to move on?

Currently, my situation is that I have two jobs that I really like, and I am decently paid.  Although my first job isn't nearly as good as when I had first started, three years ago, I still enjoy it, and I suspect that my joy will come back even more in the near future (the jackass disrespectful colleague quit, and a nice, cute girl was hired to take her place).  Otherwise, the only dissatisfaction with that job is caused by some new policy changes, which go against my personal beliefs on what would be in the best interest of my students, but at the end of the day, I have grown used to these new polices (well actually, most of the teachers not enforcing the old policies) and thus I can accept that.  So basically, things are good with my jobs.

Now for the other stuff.  The transportation system where I live has gone from good to bad, thanks to our idiotic mayor (who lost the elections this past  election).  Therefore, I want to move house, although I love the apartment where I am staying.  My current apartment is rented / owned by my work, and I stay in it for the cost of utilities, an excellent deal considering how large this place is.  If I move, there is no way I can get a place as nice as I am living in currently, without paying a lot more money (i.e. at least 1/3 of my pay per month, as opposed to 1/11th of my pay per month).  But because of the sucky transportation, I am thinking I would like to move closer to the main city, which would basically resolve these transportation issues.  I would then most likely look for a new job, closer to the new residence.

In many ways, I think this could be a good opportunity, as I would be able to meet more people and make more friends in the city (living in the rural area, I only have a small handful of friends, and none of them are as close as my mates are to me back home, something I miss).  But the trade off is a new job, and more expensive rent (or a worse apartment). 

My girlfriend asked me to come up to her city and to study for my master's degree at the university where she is studying.  This would occur in 2016, Spring / Winter term, though if I go this route, I will need to start preparing for it now.  My reservations are that I don't like the idea of juggling a full time job with full time study, and I don't think I would enjoy living in the city where the university is located.  Furthermore, the apartment cost there is outrageous, and to even be admitted into that university, I need to pass B1 level of Chinese language proficiency.  Well, right now I am working through a kindergarten book of Chinese language learning, along with some general use items, so I don't think I can reach a B1 level in Chinese by May either.  So I am worried sick about meeting the Chinese goal, and hate that city. Advantages are that I would be going to one of the best universities in the country. 

I just feel so torn in general, and what makes matters the worst is that I can't just sit on the fence and put it off until another time, something that I am an expert at doing. 

For those that have recently quit (or decided to stay) with their careers / current life path, how do you decide whether it is time to make the switch or not?

[80sFREAK]

You should think, how your life will change, if you will get closer with your girlfriend - got closer, she got pregnant... ouch... That's it. if you are storng enough, you can handle it, otherwise... oh well...

[Shumi Nagaremono]

Moving to new areas of a new country can be rough.  I moved about a half dozen times before finally settling outside of Tokyo.  Sometimes, I absolutely hated every waking moment of my new surroundings.  Other times, I felt like I just *fit* better in new areas that in the old. 

If I had to do it all over again, I doubt I'd change much. 

Even the "waking nightmare" that was Iizuka, Japan had a *few* benefits.

[M-Tee]

Does your employer offer a housing allotment if you were to get your own place?

[fcgamer]

Does your employer offer a housing allotment if you were to get your own place?

I don't think they would.  Even getting free housing is quite rare, but my employer is generous enough to do that (well in other areas they are not so generous, but for the most part, I can't complain). 

[number47]

I think you have to perform SWOT analysis for all available options to see pros and cons.

7 years ago I did let go of my former life and moved to another place to do a completely different work - I switched living in center area of capital to a small town, I switched 20min walking to work to 20min driving to work, I also lost in salary (by now it has changed a lot, it took some effort and self development of course), but now I have talked to people from my former company and I know that they are not doing well: this was the right decision to make. Some new opportunities have emerged that would never ever had in my previous location and occupation...

If you feel that you are capable of more than your current dead-end-job then it's time to move on. For the studying part - I'm graduating this February and whole this school was while working fulltime, it's a question of interest, commitment, discipline and pushing your limits: if you are really into the subject and it makes you happy then the time doesn't matter at all  

[pic-mirandole]

When I left my job to do a PhD ten years ago with 1/3 salary loss, the question was raised since I lived in a very nice district in Paris and since the high school of Engineering where I was assumed to do the PhD was much further from my home than the previous job. I decided to stay in the same home and change some habits in order to keep similar quality of life - I acknowledge the subjective nature of this concept and the quality of life sticks with the vicinity of my home  - with lower salary and higher charges due to transport costs. I could add that the new (old now  ) PhD job was by far much worthwhile which contributes to improve "quality of life".
During the main part of this period, I was single. When I wasn't anymore and after defending my thesis, I got a new job and the fact I was living with my girlfriend in the same home brought me to consider another place to live with her (e.g. in a roomier flat). This is not always obvious to live with his boy/girldfriend within the same flat, that's why I would invite you to consider this possibility in addition to the first thoughts you expressed in your message.
As for the location of your home, I share your point as I (from my view) always favoured a flat in an urban area: you can meet more friends or more often, outings are easier to organize and remain ecclectic: you are in vicinity of everything.

Time resource allocations for full-time job and study is a challenging task. I haven't tried although I had this possibility when I wrote the PhD report, I only gave private tuitions and lectures in engineering  high school because study required  more concentration than the job (maybe due to their theoretical materials) for me. Some of my PhD collegues tried to have a full-time job when the funding plan for the PhD is over and when they wanted to achieve it, they generally spread their presentation over 1 year due to the lack of time to review the comments from the researchers on their report or to prepare their presentation. This is the paradigm of having more than 1 taks: if you run them in parallel, you will require more time to complete them than for only 1 task (except if you can "parallelize" your different activities like a multi-core computer  ).

I don't know your second activity, but if you could find a way to make connection between one of your job and the (master degree) studies you have to follow, you could save some time you need to complete both of them. For example, consider you teach english in China to 15-18 years old students and you need to improve your chinese speaking (and writing) level, depending which chinese books you would need to read (chinese litterature, chinese history & civilization) for your studies, you could propose to several students of your class to work on them and help them to do some analysis of key moments or summary. You could select a range of words/expressions typical from chinese language you found on these books and you invite them to describe them in english. Another example is that you could organize sort of tea time session (out of your work) with chinese people who share interests in english/chinese litterature/history and propose to work on (time) shared discussions on specific subjects (1h in chinese, 1h in english). Another example is to organize outing cultural meetings in your city with specific areas of interests in case your flat is small and you cannot host people. You could start from a monument which kicks the whistle of a topic.
As you may see, this could require some works but it could be valuable as you can improve your (chinese) contacts as well as you combine this "new activity" as a link between one of your job and your study, if applicable.

Pic.