The Day I Quit Working Forever

There came a day recently—quiet, unceremonious, but powerfully intentional—when I quit working forever.

Not because I retired, cashed out, or stopped contributing. But because I made the conscious decision to stop using the word work to describe what I do in the world. From now on, I create.

This isn’t a game of semantics. It’s a reclamation. A reframing. A radical shift in how I relate to the many areas of my life where I contribute, offer, build, support, and shape. It’s the language of liberation. And I didn’t come to it lightly.

The Weight of “Work”

The word work comes heavy-laden with centuries of baggage. Historically tied to toil, obligation, and survival, it carries the residue of something we have to do, rather than what we choose to do. It conjures images of the grind, the hustle, the struggle to earn, to prove, to matter.

Even when we say things like “I love my work,” there’s often an undercurrent of martyrdom. We burn out in service of what we call work. We sacrifice, overextend, and collapse at the end of the day because we’ve been conditioned to equate working hard with being valuable. Especially those of us socialized to believe that our worth is directly tied to our output.

But what if there’s another way?

From Work to Creation

I’ve decided to shift my language—and therefore my reality—from working to creating.

Creation is active, yes, but it’s also chosen. It’s born of inspiration, intention, and alignment. When I create, I am in partnership with life, not in resistance to it. Creation is infused with possibility. With choice. With love.

Each morning now, I begin my day not by reviewing a to-do list of obligations, but by asking myself:

What am I creating today?

Across each area of my life—my family, my consulting practice, my coaching, my community, my writing—I sit with this inquiry: What wants to be created here? Not managed, not performed, not survived… but created.

It’s a daily practice. A muscle I’m building. Some days the old patterns show up: the sense of pressure, the urge to prove. But when I bring consciousness to my language, I feel the energetic shift. I’m not here to toil. I’m here to build, to imagine, to birth new realities.

The Power of Language

I continue to discover at deeper and deeper levels just how fundamental language is to the human experience. We swim in conversations—spoken and unspoken—that shape our view of ourselves, others, and the world. Language isn’t just descriptive—it’s generative. It creates.

So when we keep saying we’re working, we reinforce a worldview in which effort is struggle and productivity is penance. But when we start saying we’re creating, we start stepping into the role of designer, artist, architect of our lives.

That’s not just linguistics. That’s alchemy.

Creating as a Way of Life

This shift isn’t just personal—it’s part of a much bigger transformation. The more I create my life instead of working at it, the more I meet others who are doing the same. People choosing to live from desire, not obligation. People who are building futures rooted in alignment, not approval. People who know that their energy is too precious to be spent on toil.

And I’m here for all of it.

So no, I’m not working anymore. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever again.

I am creating!

And I invite you to join me.