Eight years ago I made a decision that many thought was crazy. I quit a stable job as a lawyer. I gave up a fixed salary, a permanent contract, and that peace of mind that everyone celebrated when they asked me how I was doing. The funny thing is that, while everyone thought I was giving up security, I felt exactly the opposite.
I lived waiting. Waiting for Friday to come. Waiting for vacation. Waiting for lunchtime. Waiting for six in the evening to feel that the day was finally starting to be mine. I wasn’t unhappy. I didn’t have a bad job either. But there was something that weighed on me every day: the feeling that my time always belonged first to someone else.
I remember looking at the clock over and over. Not because I wanted to work less. I looked at it because I needed to regain the feeling of choice. Choosing when to go for a walk. Choosing whether to have a calm lunch. Choosing when to take vacation without feeling like I was negotiating a favor.
Over time I understood that I wasn’t escaping work. I was seeking freedom. That’s why, when I hear the debate about working hours and voices say that reducing hours makes people less productive, I feel we are still discussing from the wrong place. We keep measuring work in hours, as if presence were synonymous with commitment. As if staying longer sitting in an office guaranteed better ideas, better results, or more fulfilled people.
Maybe the question shouldn’t be how many hours we work. Maybe we should ask ourselves how many of those hours we live feeling that our life belongs to us. Because the real wear and tear doesn’t always come from overwork. Often it comes from lack of autonomy. From having to ask permission to take a child to the doctor. From not being able to accompany a mother. From organizing your whole life around a schedule someone else defined for us.
Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. And not everyone should. But I do believe that we all deserve something much more basic: jobs that understand that people don’t stop being people when we start our workday.
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Being independent isn’t a perfect story either. There are months of uncertainty, difficult decisions, and responsibilities that fall entirely on me. I work a lot. Probably more than when I was an employee.
But in these eight years I have also built a company. I formed a team. I have been able to hire people and create a space where other female lawyers can also practice their profession with more autonomy and flexibility. And, through my mentoring, I support women who want to become independent.
I didn’t quit to work less. I quit so that my time would have my name again. I didn’t quit a job. I quit a life that wasn’t mine. And how nice it feels to be writing this from a café, with my little dog accompanying me, waiting for a lawyer who is coming to talk with me because she is also looking to build a professional life that looks more like her.
Eight years ago I was that woman who doubted, who was afraid, who didn’t know if there was another way. Today I am fortunate to accompany others to discover that there is. And maybe that is the most unexpected gift of having chosen my freedom: realizing that a decision that started as a love story with myself ended up becoming an opportunity for others to write theirs too.
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