P.S - This is a fictional story
The night I submitted my resignation letter, my hands were shaking so hard I could barely click "send." Three years later, sitting in my home office overlooking the city skyline, I can finally tell you the whole truth about what happened next.
The Golden Handcuffs Were Getting Tighter
My name is Sarah Chen, and for eight years, I was Employee #47,392 at the Department of Municipal Affairs. Picture this: beige cubicles stretching endlessly under fluorescent lights, the smell of burnt coffee permanently embedded in the carpet, and the soul crushing sound of printers jamming every Tuesday at 2:47 PM like clockwork.
I had what everyone called "the dream job" stable income, killer benefits, pension plan that would set me up for life. My parents were proud. My mortgage was manageable. My future was... predictable. Terrifyingly, mind-numbingly predictable.
But here's the thing about golden handcuffs...they're still handcuffs.
Every morning, I'd drag myself to the subway platform and watch the same faces heading to the same places, all of us trapped in this bizarre collective sleepwalk. I started having this recurring dream where I was a hamster running on a wheel, and every time I tried to jump off, the wheel would spin faster until I was clinging on for dear life.
Then crypto happened.
The Rabbit Hole Opened Up
It started innocently enough. My college roommate Jake texted me in early 2021: "Dude, you need to check out this NFT thing. I just sold a digital artwork for more than your monthly salary."
I laughed it off. Jake was always chasing get rich quick schemes. Remember his "revolutionary" smoothie delivery app that lasted exactly three weeks?
But curiosity killed the cat, or in this case, the government employee.
I spent my lunch breaks diving into white papers, Discord servers, and YouTube explainers. The rabbit hole went deeper than Alice ever imagined. Suddenly, I wasn't just reading about blockchain technology – I was living it. I minted my first NFT (a terrible pixel art cat that I'm embarrassed to admit I still own). I joined DeFi protocols. I started a crypto Twitter account that somehow gained 10,000 followers in six months.
The craziest part? I was good at this. Really good.
While my colleagues were discussing the best retirement fund allocations, I was analyzing smart contracts and liquidity pools. While they were watching Netflix after work, I was attending virtual meetups with developers from around the world, brainstorming solutions to problems I didn't even know existed six months earlier.
For the first time in years, I felt alive.
The Breaking Point
The breaking point came on a gray Thursday in November 2021. I was sitting in my 847th budget meeting, listening to my supervisor drone on about "optimizing departmental expenditures" for Q4, when my phone buzzed.
It was a DM from someone I'd connected with in a Web3 community: "Hey Sarah, we're launching a new DeFi protocol and need someone with your analytical skills. Interested in chatting?"
I stared at that message for what felt like an eternity. Here was someone on the internet, someone I'd never met in person, offering me an opportunity based purely on the value I'd created in this new digital world. Meanwhile, I was surrounded by people who'd known me for eight years and still thought my biggest achievement was color coding the quarterly reports.
That night, I went home and did something that shocked even me – I ran the numbers. Not just the salary comparison (though the Web3 offer was 3.5x my government pay), but the life comparison. If I stayed in my government job, where would I be in ten years? Twenty?
The answer terrified me more than any market crash ever could.
The Leap (And the Landing)
Quitting was simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing I'd ever done. Easy because I'd been mentally checked out for months. Hard because I was walking away from everything that represented "security" in my family's eyes.
My parents thought I'd lost my mind. "You're throwing away your career for internet money?" my dad asked, using that tone reserved for particularly disappointing life choices.
My friends were split down the middle. Half thought I was brilliant, half thought I was having an early midlife crisis. My ex-boyfriend took the opportunity to remind me why we broke up: "You always were too impulsive, Sarah."
But you know what? The moment I walked out of that building for the last time, carrying my sad little box of desk plants and motivational calendars, I felt something I hadn't experienced in years: possibility.
Welcome to the Wild West
If government work was like driving on a well-maintained highway at exactly the speed limit, Web3 was like being shot out of a cannon into uncharted territory while blindfolded and hoping you'd land somewhere awesome.
The first six months were absolute chaos.
I joined a startup developing a revolutionary DeFi lending protocol. Our team consisted of a 19-year-old coding prodigy from Estonia, a former Wall Street quant who'd moved to Portugal for the taxes, and a philosophy PhD who spoke entirely in metaphors about "reimagining financial primitives."
We were building something that had never been built before, solving problems that didn't exist until we created them, and somehow convincing people to trust us with millions of dollars in digital assets.
Our first major bug nearly gave me a panic attack. A smart contract vulnerability that could have drained the entire protocol was discovered at 3 AM on a Sunday. I found myself on emergency calls with developers across four time zones, frantically working to patch the issue before anyone exploited it.
In my government job, the biggest emergency was when the coffee machine broke.
The Crash (Literally and Figuratively)
Then came the winter of 2022. If you were in crypto during that time, you know. If you weren't, imagine watching your entire industry get hit by a meteor while you're standing in the middle of it.
Terra Luna collapsed. FTX imploded. Projects I'd been working on lost 95% of their value overnight. The "easy money" disappeared faster than free pizza at a tech conference.
I remember calling my mom during the worst of it, half-expecting her to say "I told you so." Instead, she asked, "Are you okay, honey? Do you need to come home?"
That's when I realized something profound: I wasn't okay, but I was alive in a way I'd never been before. The fear, the uncertainty, the chaos... it was all real. Every emotion was heightened, every decision mattered, every day brought something completely unexpected.
Compare that to my government job, where the most exciting thing that happened in eight years was when they switched from regular coffee to "premium blend" in the break room.
Finding My Footing in the Rubble
The crypto winter taught me more about resilience than any self-help book ever could. While speculators fled and fair-weather builders abandoned ship, the real innovators stayed. We adapted, we learned, we built better things.
I pivoted from the DeFi protocol to joining a team working on supply chain transparency using blockchain technology. Less sexy than DeFi, maybe, but solving real problems for real people. We were helping ensure that organic coffee was actually organic, that conflict free diamonds were actually conflict-free.
The work was meaningful in ways that updating municipal databases never was.
The Human Side of Digital Revolution
Here's what nobody tells you about Web3: it's not really about the technology. It's about the people.
I've collaborated with designers in Buenos Aires, developers in Lagos, and entrepreneurs in Singapore. I've attended conferences where 22 year old developers share stages with 60 year old venture capitalists, all united by this shared belief that we can build something better.
Yes, there are scammers and grifters and people trying to make a quick buck. But there are also brilliant minds working 16 hour days to solve problems they genuinely care about. There are communities forming around shared values, not just shared geography.
In my government job, I knew exactly five people well enough to have lunch with. In Web3, I have friends I've never met in person but would trust with my life savings (and in some cases, literally have).
The Chaos Continues (And I Love It)
Three years later, I'm still here. My portfolio has been on more roller coasters than a Six Flags enthusiast. I've worked for companies that went from zero to hundred million dollar valuations and back to zero. I've seen brilliant projects fail because of one line of bad code, and terrible projects succeed because of one lucky partnership.
My parents still don't really understand what I do. When people ask at family gatherings, I usually just say "technology consulting" because explaining DeFi protocols over Thanksgiving dinner is a special kind of torture.
But here's what I know for certain: I wake up every morning excited about what I'm building. I go to sleep every night having learned something new. I'm surrounded by people who challenge me, inspire me, and occasionally drive me completely insane with their 2 AM "brilliant ideas" in the group chat.
Is it stable? Hell no. Is it predictable? Not even a little bit. Would I go back to my government job if they offered me double the salary and a corner office?
Not for all the Bitcoin in the world.
The Real Lesson
The chaos that followed my leap into Web3 wasn't a bug, it was a feature.
Life is supposed to be uncertain. Growth is supposed to be uncomfortable. If you're not occasionally questioning your sanity, you're probably not pushing hard enough against the boundaries of what's possible.
My government job offered me the illusion of security in exchange for the guarantee of stagnation. Web3 offered me the guarantee of chaos in exchange for the possibility of building something extraordinary.
Some days, I miss the simplicity of a predictable paycheck and clearly defined responsibilities. But then I remember the feeling of sitting in that beige cubicle, watching my life tick by in 15 minute increments, and I know I made the right choice.
The future belongs to the people brave enough to build it, even when especially when – nobody knows exactly what it's supposed to look like.
The chaos continues, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sarah Chen is a Web3 strategist, former government employee, and proud owner of that terrible pixel art cat NFT. She's currently building the next generation of decentralized applications and still can't explain to her parents exactly what that means.
Top comments (4)
Nice story 👏
Thanks.
Glad you liked it
what is the future for the fresher in the web3 and blockchain?
Believe me mate there's alot of opportunities in the web3 space
just get started