My career has not necessarily been one that legions of fans want to emulate, but I've done pretty well. I've made decent money, I've worked either for myself or for others I respect, and when I haven't respected my employers I've moved on quickly. While a satisfying career is certainly about money and (for some) prestige, I think it's also about freedom. Specifically, the freedom to walk away if you feel like things are bad and aren't going to get better.

I was reminded of this after reading this blog post from MakingOurWay, specifically this excerpt:

One thing I told her was my desire to walk away from the job at any time. No interest in putting up with BS. I believe my boss senses this, too. It really makes people treat you seriously.

I'm not looking forward to the new mortgage. It will be much harder to walk away from a steady pay check. Unsure how it will effect me, but am sure I'll think twice about quiting due to BS. key issue is to maintain the feeling of independence.

The next important step is knowing what I'm worth and having enough saved up to feel comfortable walking away.

He really captures all my feelings about work and career in those few paragraphs.

I don't believe you should quit a job or shut down a business at the first sign of trouble, but I think you should be willing to walk at any time. As soon as your job becomes crucial to your survival, or a particular client becomes crucial to your business, you start to become a prisoner. There is tremendous power, and as he says a "feeling of independence," in knowing that you can leave, or you can fire a client, without it being the end of the world.

How do you get there? Two ways.

First, be good at what you do. If you work hard and do a good job, someone else is going to want you. If you think of yourself as an easily replaceable part in the machine, you'll not have the confidence to do your job as well as it should be done or the confidence to stand up to a boss or co-worker that is attempting to make your work life miserable. And if you think punching the clock and avoiding controversy is the way to keep your job, don't be surprised if you're the first one to go if there's a layoff. Doing good work gives you the confidence to be able to say "if you don't treat me right, I'll find another company (or clients) that will."

The second way to have that freedom is to have a cushion. Makingourway talks about a new mortgage and the difficulty of walking away from a paycheck. That can be a real dilemma. Any time you walk too much of a financial tightrope, you risk becoming a prisoner to your job. Whenever you need something versus just wanting it, your desperation increases and your ability to chart your own course lessens. Having a financial cushion gives you the most important ingredient in being able to walk away from a bad situation: time. Without the cushion, you're always sweating where the next dollar is coming from.

Granted, some people do need their jobs, whether it's because of a tough local economy or a lack of marketable skills, but we should all be shooting for the place where our jobs need us more than we need them. It's better for our well being, and it leads to better work being done, too.