One Year After
So it's been a bit more than a year since I left my job at Microsoft (link). In that time, I've broken my foot, adapted to Taiwan and started working on a mentoring program (posts for another time). Since it's been a year (6 months recovering from the broken foot and 6 months in Taiwan), I thought it'd be a good idea to reflect and see if the decision to quit my job and take a risk to come to Taiwan was "right" or "wrong"/how do I even know?
Tradeoffs
As mentioned previously, one of the key determining factors in me leaving Microsoft was that I was not pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I also wanted to come to Taiwan and see if I could adapt and create a life for myself. However, when I made my decision I knew that there were definitely tradeoffs with making my decision: from Microsoft, losing a ton of money not just in current salary but also career growth, to Taiwan, where I would really have to figure out a lot of things without much help.
What's Happened
Over the past year, Microsoft as a company has done extremely well. Based on my actual salary with benefits and potential career growth, I probably lost 2.5+ years worth of salary for the 1 year I took off (which will continue to grow until I go back to work).
On the other side, coming to Taiwan was a struggle, mostly trying to adjust to a new country with minimal support (a post for another time) and experiencing a lot of culture shock (another post). Even though I've been in Taiwan for half a year, I am still learning to adapt to some of the culture.
Hindsight and Reflection
Based on the above, it might be easy to say I made the "wrong" decision, that if I had stayed at Microsoft and continued to work, that my life would be nice and comfortable. However, that is exactly the reason that I quit in the first place; to stop being complacent. Coming to Taiwan was about pushing myself; if I didn't struggle, I must be doing something wrong. So the real question shouldn't be whether I made the right or wrong decision, it should be whether sacrificing money and stability of working at Microsoft was worth the growth and knowledge I got from coming to Taiwan.
Worth It? Right Decision?
Although I did lose a lot of potential earnings and definitely have found it challenging living in Taiwan, just the fact that Taiwan is such a different environment has helped me learn about myself and push me further. In my 6 months here, my Chinese has gotten significantly better, I've started to understand local Taiwanese/Asians mindsets and culture more, and I've also managed to answer a lot of the "What if I...?" questions that I had while I was working at Microsoft. If I could redo my choice, I would not change my decision. Although I might have not pushed myself to the fullest extent possible, looking back, quitting my job and coming to Taiwan was (and still is) worth it and the "right" decision for me.
