Should I Quit My Job? Examining the Decision with Epictetus
Epictetus provides no general instruction to remain in an unpleasant job or leave it. A decision requires attention to the circumstances, the person making it, and the responsibilities involved.
In Discourses 1.2, he examines what different people are prepared to accept and what preserving their character requires. His concern is more demanding than whether an arrangement feels agreeable or beneath someone’s status. He asks what a person is choosing to become through accepting it. Discourses 1.2
For a present-day employment decision, begin by describing the work accurately.
Perhaps the hours are exhausting. Perhaps the pay does not cover your obligations. Perhaps the work requires deception. Perhaps you dislike receiving instructions. These are different circumstances, and they call for different examinations.
The feeling “I need to leave” does not tell you which circumstance is decisive.
Next, consider what leaving would involve. What would you do afterward? What preparation is required? Who would be affected? Are you considering the ordinary difficulties of the alternative, or only the relief of escaping the present arrangement?
Epictetus uses athletic training to make a related point: examine what an undertaking requires before committing yourself to it. Admiring the result is easier than accepting the work and restrictions that lead toward it. Enchiridion 29
Then examine the reason for your choice.
If you stay, are you making a considered provision for your responsibilities, or accepting something you judge dishonest because you fear losing your position?
If you leave, are you pursuing a reasonable alternative, or assuming that a different employer will remove every occasion for frustration?
Neither staying nor leaving demonstrates good judgment by itself.
A careful decision may be to prepare for departure while continuing to work. It may be to seek a change in the arrangement. It may be to refuse a demand that would require wrongdoing. These are possible applications, not a verdict Epictetus supplies without knowing your circumstances.
The task is to understand what each option asks of you and judge it without allowing relief, fear, or status to settle the matter in advance.