I'm at the grocery store, standing at the cashier counter. The attendant finishes scanning my items and prompts me to pay.

I reach for my wallet, but then my phone rings.

It’s that number again. I’d just rejected it a few minutes ago.

My rule with unknown calls is to just ignore them. Scam calls are everywhere here, and I don’t even want to give them the benefit of potentially recording my voice. Who knows? They might have some voice-hacking software to trick those close to me.

But since it was a second call, I figured it could be important.

“Hello?” I answer curtly.

“Hi, is this Nicholas?” The voice on the line is overly friendly.

“What’s this about?” I’m not a fan of taking inbound calls—not because they’re annoying, but because the pitches are usually bad. I don’t mind a good pitch; I just have never heard a good one.

“This is [HIS NAME], from [YOUR FORMER WORKPLACE IN 2022]. I wanted to…”

I shrieked just from hearing the name 🫣🫣

That workplace was a torrid time for me. They ran private healthcare services where their sales team over-promised and under-delivered—leaving us with waves of unhappy customers.

To make things worse, the building wasn’t designed to handle such heavy crowds, so imagine hundreds of frustrated people forced to wait in long, chaotic queues, who were already under-delivered from the get go.

I was at the receiving end of borderline abuse from customers which killed me on the inside.

Working there had been my last-ditch attempt to put my medical degree to use—and it ended up being the last straw for me.

Honestly, I should’ve just started a daily newsletter back then, writing as an ex-doctor.

Oh, the stories I could have told. 🤣

But I digress.

“Sorry, not interested, no need to call me again”

I don’t think I’ve ever pressed the “end call” button that rigorously. Even the cashier shot me a weird look.

See, I’d already given that place three miserable months of my life and I wasn’t about to give them another second.

I packed up my stuff and headed home.

Looking back, leaving that job was an easy choice to make but a hard one to follow through on. It meant starting my career from scratch all over again.

At the time, I was shutting the door on a huge chapter of my life—five-plus years of medical school, the pressure to rebuild a career, and the feeling of falling behind while watching my peers move forward.

It wasn’t easy. But I realised that taking a step into the hard, unknown path was better than staying stuck in a toxic workplace.

Obviously with hindsight, that was the right choice. It led me to the career I have now and gave me the space to share stories that matter—on my own terms—through this newsletter.

Sometimes the healthiest choice you can make is to let go of the wrong thing. Walking away doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you’re giving yourself permission to move forward.

If you’re feeling stuck—whether it’s in work, habits, or relationships—ask yourself: What do I need to walk away from so I can finally walk forward?

Nicholas Ng