I left my job at the end of October in 2022 and enjoyed a sabbatical for about a year, where my anti-goal was productivity and my goal was to explore different ways of resting.
I did a lot of yoga, reading, cooking, and seeing friends. I also traveled around Europe for about a month to take myself completely out of my normal context. I spent the first week of the trip doing some solo travel. I find that immersing myself in different contexts during solo-travel is not only enjoyable in its own right, but also helpful for reflecting on what’s important back home. I travelled through Oslo, Norway and Copenhagen, Denmark myself and then met up with my partner in Rome, Italy. We went to Florence, Italy; Lausanne, Switzerland; Barcelona, Spain; Málaga, Spain; and Paris, France together before flying home.
During the trip we spent a few of our travel days on high-speed trains, marveling at how much nicer they were than flying and lamenting that we didn’t have anything comparable back home. I talked with friends about sustainability and reflected on how much carbon my plane rides to and from Europe were dumping into the atmosphere. We also learned more about where food was being grown and how far it traveled throughout Europe – including plans to take more trucks off the road and transport more food on trains on Switzerland! All of this had a big impact on my desire to look for jobs related to preventing and mitigating the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
After returning home, I started the process of researching jobs in the climate space and starting to send out applications. In addition to the reading, cooking, yoga, and seeing friends I’ve also started to add classes into my mix of ways of exploring rest. I built a Shaker style hallway table as part of a woodworking class and started wheelthrowing ceramics classes.
As of August 2023, I started to actively look for a new role and in October 2023 I started The IT Witch.
The time away from work was truly wonderful and afforded me the ability to rest, reflect, and recharge. I feel so lucky and privileged to have been able to take this time. Please do reach out if you’re curious about taking your own career sabbatical and want to hear more about my experience.