I was a restaurant manager. I climbed from starting salary out of school to more than I ever thought I'd make at a nice spot in the city.

I easily put in 80 hours a week like you without thinking twice. One day I just realized that I hated my job. EVERYTHING was always negative. If somebody had to be fired, that was my job. If customers were furious, I was the guy to take the beating. If the owner was unhappy with numbers for any reason, I had to hear it.

I developed terrible anxiety and dreaded work. It started to become just general social anxiety. I avoided going out for any reason. I knew I had to quit for my sanity.

I had a little money saved, so I left and moved to a much cheaper place to figure out what to do. I spent a few months volunteering and doing some ridiculous things (professional wrestling school and acting classes). One of the volunteer jobs was working with dogs and I ended up making excuses to spend more and more time there.

One thing lead to another and I signed a two year contract with a chain to groom dogs in exchange for training. I made about 25k per year which is very rough to live on in NJ, but I was happy. Really happy. The anxiety was gone.

After the contract, I took a risk by maxing out my credit and taking out a loan to start my own shop and it changed my life. I have since opened 3 more locations as well as a kennel and am making more now than I did as a restaurant manager at my peak. It will be 8 years since I quit the restaurant business in January. I really believe the reason that I have been able to grow is that I actually care about my work. I get up in the morning excited to see my employees and clients.

I know it's not a typical story and I'm sorry if this is long, but I really feel like people can pick up on passion. I'm happy now and that would be worth it even if I wasn't fortunate enough to have grown the way I did. I hope you can find what's right for you. Don't do what you hate. Happy is better than rich. Good luck and I hope this helped.