I have a cousin who was born when I was a freshman in college and we’ve grown rather close in recent years – mainly thanks to him – so when he called around the first of the year to tell me he had quit his high-paying job I was tempted to yell, “Are you crazy?!” I care for him a great deal, you see, so my financial planner brain started to mentally calculate the future value of his lost salary over the next few months. I didn’t react that way, fortunately, and I slowly started to see his wisdom as he explained his motivation. It wasn’t that he hated his job – he was a well-compensated regional manager for Target – but that he yearned to see the impact of his hard work more directly. As it turns out, his professional journey is actually becoming more common.