[2022-08-02] Quitting my job was a big mistake [_kl6SpFYOVc]

As some of you may know, I used to work in

a petrol station for about 9 months back

in 2017. I got the job in 2016, and I

decided to quit the job in the middle of

2017 to focus on my dreams of becoming a

famous YouTuber. And you might not think

that 9 months is a very long time to be in

one job, but for me personally, it's quite

a long time, and it's actually the second

longest I've ever had a job. My only other

job I had that was longer than 9 months

was about a year and a half, and that was

just washing dishes in a pub restaurant.

So I was working at this petrol station,

and in the beginning it was going quite

well. I thought the job was quite easy and

the money was quite good, even though it

was minimum wage. Because I was living

with my parents, I didn't have to pay any

money for rent or other expenses. I was

able to save a lot of money, and it was

really close by my house, so it only took

about 5 minutes to walk there. I didn't

really have any other expenses like travel

expenses to pay either, so I was able to

save almost every single penny that I

made. And whilst I was working at the

petrol station, I was also making videos

for my YouTube channel as like a hobby. I

would just think of video ideas whilst I

was at work, and then I would really look

forward to coming home from work so I

could set up the camera and start making

these videos for this very tiny audience

that I had at the time. At the time, I

only had about 1,000 or maybe not even

1,000 subscribers when I started the

petrol station job. So I had a pretty good

work-life balance. I had my stable petrol

station job with regular income coming in,

and I had my little hobby of making videos

for fun, and it was just for fun because

it wasn't really making any money at that

point. But then around the beginning of

2017, something began to change. I started

to get a little bit of traction on my

YouTube channel. More and more people were

getting interested, and I realized that

people were interested in my personal

life, my dating life, and I've got a lot

of stories and experiences to share. And I

felt like I might actually have something

here. I've got this platform that is

growing, people enjoying my videos. I feel

like I've got something unique and special

to bring to the platform. Also, things

were not going very well at the petrol

station. What I thought would be a very

easy and mundane job to just go in there

every day and work 8 hours was starting to

become extremely stressful. I didn't get

on with my coworker at all. I didn't

really enjoy serving customers because

sometimes there would be rude customers

and I'd feel really stressed out every day

that something was going to go wrong. And

nearly every day that I went to the petrol

station to do my night shifts, almost at

least one or two things, mistakes would

happen. And I just started to really dread

going to work because every time I'd walk

to work, I'd be thinking, oh my God,

what's gonna happen tonight? Are we going

to get robbed again? Am I going to get

nagged at again by my coworker? Am I going

to be blamed again for not noticing that

we're being shoplifted? And there was just

this huge amount of anxiety that I felt

every night before going to work. And I

really hated working there. And my YouTube

channel was steadily growing, very slowly,

but it definitely was growing. At that

point, I had about 4,000 subscribers and I

thought there was quite a lot of people

who were watching me now, and everyone

seemed to be really enjoying my videos.

And I really felt like I had a good chance

at making it as a YouTuber and making

something of my small little channel if I

just focus all my efforts and energy onto

it. So I was still working at the petrol

station, but then one night I had this

massive fight with my coworker. For the

first time ever, I kind of stood up for

myself and I talked back to him. Up until

then, I always just nodded and I said,

yes, okay, okay. And I never really argued

with him or fought back. But that night I

just kind of snapped and I stood my ground

and I just said to him some stuff that I

probably shouldn't have said. And then he

complained about me to my manager, then my

manager had a word with me, and the whole

thing was just so awkward and

uncomfortable and horrible. I just had to

quit the job after that. After I quit the

job, I really felt this huge amount of

relief and I felt like I could finally

focus on what I really want to do in life,

which was making videos and entertaining

my small little audience. I didn't really

feel like I wanted to spend the rest of my

life working in a petrol station. So to

celebrate quitting my job and being able

to focus on my new career path in life, I

decided to do what I do best, and I

decided to go to Japan. And this was my

first experience of going to Japan with

such a large amount of people watching

everything I was doing. It was really

exciting, and I was really hyped up for

it. It wasn't my first time vlogging a

trip to Japan because I did vlog a trip to

Japan back in 2016, but back then I only

had about 50 subscribers, so it was kind

of a different experience. So I took my

new audience to Japan with me, and a lot

of stuff happened in involving Japanese

women and getting married and cheating and

all that stuff that you already know

about. And my channel really took off in

2018. And I thought to myself, wow, I

really made it. I really achieved this

goal that I wanted to achieve, which was

to become a YouTuber and quit my boring

job at the petrol station. Most people

would think that I'm crazy for deciding to

quit a full-time stable job just because I

got 4,000 subscribers on YouTube. I've

seen so many other people who managed to

get hundreds of thousands of subs or half

a million subscribers, and they still

don't quit. Their full-time normal job

because they still think that being a

YouTuber is too unpredictable, it's too

risky, it's too unstable, and they'd

rather just keep YouTube as a hobby, a

little thing they do on the side, and

carry on doing their main full-time normal

job. I was just so excited at the idea of

being a YouTuber, a full-time YouTuber who

doesn't have to have a job, and I just—

maybe I felt a little bit too confident in

my channel or my ability to be able to

make videos that were entertaining. I just

really felt like I had something special,

something unique that not a lot of other

people were providing on YouTube. And

maybe at one point I did have something

special. I had this quirky, unique

personality that was interesting to a lot

of people. But as the years go by, people

change as people. And I guess my

personality changed into something that

was less interesting because I learned the

hard way that number one, it's very

difficult to build an audience in the

first place. And the harder thing is

keeping them interested and coming back to

keep watching year after year after year.

So I had a couple of good years in 2018,

'19, and 2020, but then 2021, this year,

I started to notice that people's interest

in the channel and me as a person has kind

of fizzled out to a point where I'm now

making probably half the amount of money

that I was making at the petrol station.

So 5 years later, after quitting the

petrol station job to chase my dream of

becoming a YouTuber. I don't really know

if it was the right decision to make. I

don't know if things are going to get

better for the channel. I don't really

know how to turn my channel around because

after 5 years of making videos, I've

talked about every single thing that's

happened to me. I've shared and told every

single story and experience that I've ever

had in my life. So I don't really have any

new stories to talk about or to make

videos about, and I'm pretty much burned

out at this point. I've talked about

almost every single topic that I can

possibly think about that I can actually

talk about. So financially speaking, I

don't really know what I could do next.

I'm looking at trying to make different

kinds of content for the channel, but I

don't really know if that's going to work

or not. It's kind of unlikely. If we're

talking about things from a purely

financial point of view, then I would have

made more money if I just stayed at the

petrol station and worked there instead of

trying to make YouTube my full-time source

of income, my full-time main source of

income. I would have made a lot more money

if I was still working at the petrol

station to this very day, and I think one

of the main problems is one of the age-old

sayings is that when you start making

money from the things you love doing,

from your hobbies, then your hobby becomes

your job. And then when it becomes your

job, it no longer feels very fun anymore.

And then when you're not really having fun

doing your hobby anymore, then you start

to suck at it. And I think that kind of

happened to me because in the beginning I

really enjoyed making YouTube videos. It

was fun. There was no pressure. I enjoyed

the creative process of being able to make

a video and share my ideas and opinions as

an artist. But then as soon as I started

to depend on it for money, then it all

became about how can I get as many views

as I can? How can I make more money? And

then it just became really stressful and

the fun kind of got sucked out of it. And

it's just really hard to make good videos

that people can enjoy watching when the

person creating it themselves doesn't

really enjoy making it themselves. And I'm

trying to rediscover the fun of making

videos again, but it's very hard because

I've changed a lot as a person. It's been

5 years. I'm not 27 or 26 years old

anymore. I've had a lot of life

experiences, and my interests and stuff

like that has changed quite a lot over the

years. So I don't really know what to do

moving forwards. I'm not sure if I'm going

to think about looking for a job again.

Maybe I could see if the petrol station is

looking for people. At this time, maybe

there's like a completely different set of

people working there now, and that

Nepalese guy doesn't work there anymore,

and I won't have the same problems like I

did last time. But it would be kind of

weird going back there to, to work there

again. I don't know if I'll just carry on

trying to make different kinds of videos

for the channel. Maybe, fingers crossed,

something will work eventually. I think

what I should focus on now is trying to do

a lot of self-learning, self-discovery

about myself, and trying to find out what

I really enjoy doing now, what I can do to

to focus on that. And if I do find

something that I actually find fun, maybe

I can share that on the channel. But right

now everything is just kind of boring.

The most interesting thing for me right

now is learning to drive, which I don't

really think any of you care about because

most people can already drive and it's a

pretty normal thing to be able to drive.

The main thing I was hoping that would

happen would be that Japan would reopen

and then I could go back to Japan and then

I could go back to vlogging my life in

Japan again like I used to all those years

ago. But there's no news on when Japan's

going to reopen, if they're ever going to

reopen. It could be 2025 or 2026.

Currently I do have plans to go to

Thailand after I get my driving license,

but I'm not 100% sure if that's actually

going to happen. The girl that I'm

chatting to does seem quite nice and she

seems very eager to meet, so hopefully

things will go well and smoothly and

nothing will disrupt my current plans

because I think a trip to Thailand might

be fairly interesting. But judging from

the views on my Malaysia vlogs, it doesn't

seem like people are that interested in

just watching travel to random countries

either, so I don't know what to do.