Lessons from taking time away from work

Most of us spend a lot of time at work with the average spending one-third of our lives, or 90,000 hours, working. Given that we spend another third of our lives sleeping (8 out of 24 hours in a day), we only get one-third of our lives to do everything else.

I constantly go back and forth between (a) wanting to find a career that I love; and (b) wanting to work the bare minimum at a job that pays for my lifestyle and enough to save/invest to retire early ASAP. I know, these are truly two opposite ends of a spectrum. On one hand, given how much time most of us will spend at work, I would like to enjoy it, find that experience meaningful, and feel like I’ve added something net positive to this world. On the other hand, if I had all the money I needed to live, I don’t think I would work a traditional 9-5 job as I have been. I’ve tried a handful of jobs and even the best one kind of sucked. The pay and benefits were excellent, the role was fully remote, and the people and work were better than anything else I had ever experienced, but I still found the concept of having to show up to a job that someone else controlled on Monday morning.  

I’m now about a couple of months into my break from working a 9-5 job and I’ve noticed a few things.

First, it takes a significant amount of energy and time to take care of a household and all of the domestic work that takes place to keep a home clean, well-stocked, and a pleasant environment. Whether that’s doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning, running errands, and so on, the work never ends. The minute you’re done cooking and eating, you have to do the dishes. And then 6-8 hours later, you’re stuck doing the same thing. My parents have been living with me while they renovate their home for the last six months and it takes a huge amount of energy to keep our household going and they are all adults. I honestly cannot imagine doing this with children, especially young children who must be constantly watched just to be kept alive. Shoutout to all the parents and caregivers who keep their households going on top of everything else. 

Second, I cannot express the almost immediate improvement in health and reduction of stress that has come with being away from work. After I started my new job, I was going to the chiropractor pretty regularly to deal with back and shoulder pain that had resurfaced. Within a week of getting laid off, the pain dissipated and I haven’t been back to the chiropractor since. Separately, I finally had time to get a rash checked out by a doctor, who was able to do a biopsy and confirm that it was eczema. She gave me a prescription and it went away within 4 days. I cannot believe that I had spent five years living with that rash on and off because I never made the time to have a doctor seriously take a look at it and find a treatment option. Not having that crazy rash has improved my daily quality of life tenfold and I’m so thankful I was finally able to address it. In addition, I have been able to stop relying on my usual post-work glass of wine, limiting my alcohol to drinking socially and have started to exercise regularly. As of last month, I've set a goal to exercise five out of seven days this week and feel like I'm finally in a place where working out consistently is a habit. I'm now back to being a person who exercises. I feel better physically than I have in a while and it’s also having a positive impact on my mental state as well. Overall, I've spent a lot of my time and energy just working on recalibrating the basic blocks of health—eating, exercising, sleeping, etc.

Third, I finally have the energy and brain space to read. This one is a nice surprise. While I was working, I felt like there was so much stuff in my head all the time, I couldn’t read for fun. After looking at my computer all day, the last thing I wanted to do after work was read. I had not been able to read more than a few pages at a time in a while. Since I stopped working, I've read / listened to 8+ books in the last two months and I feel like I'm returning to my natural state of curiosity, openness, and excitement to learn.

Lastly, I feel happy. I don't wake up everyday with dread, anxiety, and nervousness about what the upcoming day will entail. I wake up naturally and I go to bed feeling grateful. Without the burnout and constant negativity weighing me down, I finally have the emotional space and opportunity to take responsibility for my life by being really honest about the role I've played in my own unhappiness and what needs to change going forward to live a life that I can feel good abut. Emotional space has given me the freedom to be creative, open to exploration, and connect to my intuition. These things feel both foreign and natural at the same. It's been a while since I've been able to tap into the this energy but it feels right all the same.

I'm thankful that life has brought me here with all of the ups and the downs. This is a good chapter in my story.