For a couple of years now, I’ve been wishing I could just stop, take a break from everything and take a sabbatical year, and just do whatever I want to do in it.
When you come to think of it, it’s not really such a hard thing to do after all, I think that if you’ve got yourself financially covered for a year, meaning that you’ve managed to save what equals 12 of your paychecks, then you’re good to go and have yourself a year off from work and the everyday responsabilities you’ve had for the past years.
Ok, it’s not that easy to save all that money, but well with a good savings plan, it’s not that hard either; let’s just say you get there, then what? that’s the really big question!
You’ve got enough money to keep you going for a whole year, you don’t need to work at all, and you can, at least in theory, use your time to do whatever it is you want to do. But what is it that you want to do?
Over lunch these past days I’ve been asking some friends and colleagues from work what they’d do with their time if they had a whole year covered financially. I was expecting some really inspiring answers, but what I got back was more like blank unknowing replies.
I’m not any better, although this isn’t a question someone just threw on me while I’m chewing my lunch and thinking how great it’d be if the bug waiting for me at work would just decide to dissapear; This is something that I’ve thought about many times, but every single time I come up with a different answer.
Is it that we don’t know what we want to do with our lives?
Is it a lack of passion in us?
Is it that we’ve got so used to work that we don’t know what we’d do without it?
I don’t know, but I somehow think it’s a problem, because until we know what it is we want, we won’t know where we want to get to, how we’re going to get there, and whether we really want it or not.
So, try it, what would you do if you had a sabbatical year?
If you have an answer in your head right away, maybe that’s what you should be doing instead of whatever you’re doing in life now, and if you don’t know, then it’s about time you start thinking about what it is you want in life, and then base your goals and decisions around it.
if I had a sabatical year,I would:
of couse I will did nothing intellectual, so I will:
travel around the world
sleep a lot
watch movies
DO nothing
watch TV
sleep also in the afternoon
travel in tunisia
…
Travel a lot! 🙂
If I had a full year I would use it to write 3 non-fiction children books that I always wanted. writing these books will require travelling to some cities around the world because the theme of the series.
that is one thing. I dont like to bored you with other things LOL.
I’ll stay in Tunisia with my husband and learn more Arabic (and French). Ah, I wish!!!
Well it’s great to see all you guys know exactly what you’d want to do if you had a year off 🙂
It’s interesting to see that travel is a popular answer for this question.
I am fully retired, with a comfortable income, so I’m in that position now, and I have the uncomfortble feeling I’m wasting time. But to do the things I’d really like to do (travel, experience excitement, etc.) would require MORE money. Sigh.
This is an old post but I’ve been thinking about this a lot from 2010-2011. I’ve written down the ideal way to live my life and in one area. I wrote that I want to take a break every 7th year to reinvent myself, review and assess where I am and where I’m going, enjoy a year of my labors, and recommit to the important things in life. I sort of took a Sabbatical when I got out the Navy in 2005 (but I didn’t know that’s what it was). I began working again in 2006. Now I’m into my 6th year of work and next year (May 2012) will be my 7th year and now I fully plan to take Sabbatical. What do I plan to do?
– Complete some incomplete goals I have (education, financial, physical, professional).
– Recommit, Reconnect, and Rediscover my intimate relationship with God.
– Go on a cruise. Renew my wedding vows.
– Publish 2-3 books.
– Master new habits that I’ve always wanted to develop.
– Learn to build a house.
– Take a month and stay at a lifestyle center.
– Spend a month in the country/mountains, including some time at an Armish village.
– Spend 1-2 weeks with a Jewish family.
– Video tape some instructional material I’ve always wanted to put out.
– Give 2-4 seminars about living life to the fullest.