When I started my sabbatical, I got a lot of advice from people (still do) Travel, some said. It's so great to see new places. You have the means and the health to do it. Get a PhD, someone said. You have all the time now. Get a pet. It's going to be good to have some company.
When I started my sabbatical, I had a long list of things I wanted to do. I had the luxury of not and the freedom from working every day. I could learn a new language, explore drums circle, join an improv class. Find a new hobby like pottery, read and write like an academic, maybe get a book out.
All great ideas but none of them have become a reality...yet! The problem with what others suggest is that they have no idea about what my life and what I want. They don't know what to tell someone on a sabbatical. So they look at all the free time I am likely to have and throw vague suggestions hoping to help me navigate this phase of my life.
The problem with my own ideas was that I was over-reaching. I knew that one had to do something useful with all the time a sabbatical frees up. So I wanted to do the right thing. Go out there and try tons of different things while I could.
The problem with both sets of suggestions is the false satisfaction of chasing the high! Freedom from work has to mean something. And that freedom has to be made the most of. Do things I'd never do otherwise, achieve things that I did not have time for till now, reach that pinnacle of feeling accomplished!
But what did I actually do? Nothing. At least for the first 2 months, literally nothing. And then I had life and guests take over for a bit. Then I was back to doing nothing for another couple of months. But there was no movement towards any of the lofty goals I set for myself. There was no action to turn myself into this new and interesting person who tries out diverse things.
Every time I thought of getting to those goals, it just seemed against the spirit of a sabbatical - at least my kind of sabbatical. The whole reason why I went on a break was to stop making to-do lists that needed me to do things. To not have the pressure of unfinished tasks mar my peace of mind. And to just be!
And every list that had me chasing the high smacked of a midlife crisis. Like I was trying to inject enthusiasm into my boring life. And that wasn't the case. First of all, I would never accept that I am a boring, middle aged woman who needs to make a list that can keep the zeal of living alive. Plus the whole idea for me was to take a break from tasks and deadlines.
I also knew that I will feel like doing things in their own time. I do not want to give in to the pressure of what I'd tell people what I was doing with my time. I think that's for people with active Instagram accounts who need content to post 6 times a day! Something interesting has to happen every 2 minutes - but I had no such compulsion. And I like it - still!
I have realised that the culture of chasing the high is every where. I have met just one other person who's on a sabbatical and he went back and started posting on Linkedin about his sabbatical. Whereas I deliberately refrained from making my absence about my absence. That seems so counter intuitive. People find the idea of doing nothing very hard to understand. Something has to be buzzing all the time - posting about their daily adventures and waiting for the notifications to ping. And hence one has to indulge in hobbies that one can talk about. Or just feel the high of life.
In fact, I discovered something and about me that led to something good. I found that my brain fog actually got worse this year. Maybe my active mind struggled less to remember things although I did fumble in sessions and meetings. It has become really hard to read non-fiction books. I am nowhere near the speed that I used to read at.
And so I discovered the joy of reading slowly. Which has been a great relief! Once I accepted that trying to read fast was only muddling my mind and that reading fast is not a criteria to read books, I felt better. I sometimes read a chapter in 2 sittings because 30 pages is too much for my mind to assimilate together. It's a joy not having to rush or feeling inadequate because of the slow reading.
In fact. I have decided to read only one non-fiction book at a time because that'll take a while. I don't want to make it anymore complex than it needs to be. In fact, I won't be counting the number of books I read next year. I have realised that that also puts undue pressure on finishing a certain number. As long as I am reading a book at a given time and enjoying it, I have nothing else to prove to anyone.
Chasing highs can be great, but going slow and lowering my expectations to suit my changing mind, body and life situations has been the biggest lesson I have learnt this year.
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