“I wouldn’t be good at anything else.” Chances are if you’ve thrived in law enforcement, you could be successful at anything you wanted to do.
“It’s all I know.” Nonsense. Career law enforcement officers have experience in a myriad of areas. Sales, customer service, counseling, risk management, the list goes on and on.
“I make too much to leave.” Crazy talk. Pennies on the dollar to the private sector.
“The benefits are too good.” They are decent. But they aren’t great. You can do better. A lot better. And, you can live long enough to enjoy them.
“I’m too close to retirement.” The life expectancy of police officers is nearly 22 years less than the average population. The average life expectancy for a male in the US is 78 years. Do the math there. What’s the point in having a great retirement when you likely won’t live long enough to use it?
“It’s a calling.” No it’s not. A desire to help others is a calling. There are plenty of other ways to do it.
“Quitting is for cowards.” I don’t know many cowards who’ve run toward gunfire. Sometimes enough is just enough: better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.
“I’ll never be happy doing anything else.” Bullshit. Talk to your former cop friends. Not the retired ones who have never done anything else, but the former ones. Ask them if they are happy. 99/100 will tell you they are.
Look, you aren’t some magical unicorn of a personality that was made for only one purpose. You made a choice to be a cop, and then you let them tell you from day one things like, “It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle,” and “You were born to do this.” It’s all bullshit used to trap you in a job where the pay is shit, havoc is wreaked upon your personal life, your family suffers continuously, where ‘they’ will erase 20 years of faithful service and good deeds to label you a murderer and/or racist for a decision you made in fractions of seconds with a gun in your face, and your ‘leaders’ will throw you to the wolves any time it could save or improve their careers.
Don’t get me wrong. The job itself is honorable. The work is necessary and noble. The men and women who choose to face all of this and still suit up are everyday heroes. But, if you’re only still doing it because of the nonsense lies your academy instructors or your supervisors told you, or even worse the lies you’ve told yourself, know that you don’t have to do it. You can be something else.
If you want to start the transition or you just want a better backup plan than a security gig, visit www.ten7project.com – We will show you a way.
