My sabbatical story

Description of my life: Female, 29 years old, MBA graduate, working as a management consultant in a tier-1 firm, unmarried (mind it, not “single”), covid-times, staying with family, working 9 am to 2 am (seems exaggerated? So let’s say it 9am to 1 am).

Problems: No social life (stuck in Covid, friends fed up of getting on video calls), no outing or trips, parents introducing new guys every Sunday, no time for personal life or self care except weekends and lastly, body still recovering from severe Covid and long Covid syndromes.

Consequences: Heart palpitations, nervous breakdown, anxiety, panic attacks and above all self-doubt.

So, yes I applied for a sabbatical for 4.5 months. I understood that I had had enough and that my body and mind weren’t in sync and it was time that I focused on myself. I enrolled for therapy sessions, didn’t make a life plan but made plans to improve my confidence, my mental and physical health. At the end of these 4.5 months, I am here to tell you how my life fell into place and how I have changed as a person in both my attitude and in my behavior. I can’t be grateful enough that I took this decision for myself and questioned my approach to what I am doing.

Month 1 — The one where I did nothing: I practically did nothing. Like NOTHING. I started a book which my therapist recommended, called “Subtle art of not giving a fuck” by Mark Manson. Trust me it was such a delight to read it during this time as it gave solutions to a lot of my problems and the mental framework on how to deal with them. I babysat for my younger sister since she had undergone a major eye surgery and couldn’t practically do a lot since her eyes were compromised. I read her stories & articles just like old grannies. I was officially her nurse (that is what she called me — Nurse No. 1 while my mom was Nurse No. 2). I made no plans for my day. I cooked when I felt like, went for a walk everyday to clear my thoughts, stopped talking to all the random guys my parents had asked me to talk to (saved a lot of time to laze around more), binge watched long pending movies and series, read articles and got into the practice of meditation.

Month 2 — The one with the food stalls: Wait. What?? How did this happen? Let me explain. I always dreamt of opening up a food based restaurant/chain/ cloud kitchen. My best friend from Trident and his flatmate were experimenting with healthy cooking methods and recipes and they needed a helping hand to test their concept in Hyderabad. I jumped to the opportunity, took the next flight and went to Hyderabad. Just as if I was back to college prepping for a college fest, I was engrossed in doing random thing. We would visit societies pitching the idea and seeking permissions to set up our stall, go to the wholesale outlet for grocery shopping, experiment with food recipes and conduct taste testing in the building that we lived in, coordinate the logistics for the stall and on and on. We successfully set up 4 full day stalls at various localities and collected customer feedback. The recipes were appreciated but our efficiency was not. It was a great learning experience and we had a handful of problems to solve before we could go into full fledged operations. Then came the turning point in my life. My best friend from Trident (yes the same guy I was running this food stall with) proposed and asked if we could start dating. And after a lot of deliberation and thought I said yes and here we were having the best times of our lives. I was happy, really happy, felt a kind of stability after a long time in my life. Stability is good. You don’t plan for future, you don’t look at the past, just the present is all that is.

Month 3 — The one with the eye operation: I had to leave my just started dating phase and the food idea in between and leave for home. Reason: 1. There was Diwali, ofcourse 2. I had an eye operation planned (ICL surgery to be precise for eyesight correction). I had been wearing glasses since I was 5 years old. Since, the power was on the higher side, I was for all practical purposes - blind. So, for this reason I agreed to undergo the delicate procedure. Post Diwali, I underwent the eye operation one eye at a time with a week gap. The surgery days were pretty bad. I had blurry vision for almost a couple of weeks and I couldn’t do much with my laptop or phone. The nurse role play had now reversed with my sister reading me bedtime stories and helping me out with tasks that required me to look at screens. Also, November was the time for some life confessions and decision making. Apparently, my parents had found the perfect match and were keen to take forward the “rishta” talks with full force (almost not giving up on this because their daughter had surpassed the marriable age) and likewise my boyfriend’s (now fiancé) parents had found the perfect girl. So, the moment of truth had arrived and I had to confess to my parents that I was seeing someone and would like them to meet the guy and his parents. Then the rest of the month was full of anxious conversations and real time feedback on the discussions with parents, amongst parents and communication of the story from one relative to another.

Month 4 — The one with the weddings and weekends. Every weekend had something planned and every weekday was a process contributing to the plan. Week 1 (Visit to the family): Attended a wedding of a distant relative in Jim Corbett because we just felt like going on a fun filled vacation in the hills sponsored by the groom’s side. Weekend 1: Meeting my finance’s parents in Jaipur. This was an entirely different episode — viewpoints, observations, judgmental conversations, decisions, nervous breakdowns, endless discussions following the same pattern on and on. Finally the girl (read I) said “yes” after a lot of drama and the planning for a big Indian fat wedding started. Week 2 (Weddings): I was prepping for a friends wedding, my sister was prepping for her work training outside of home in two years and my parents were prepping for an acquaintance's wedding. Weekend 2: Visited Ranchi for my friend’s wedding and danced and celebrated. Week 3 (Shopping): Being the newbie to this wedding shopping extravaganza, me and my mom were all ears to every piece of information about wedding rituals, best places for shopping, etc. We had multiple rounds of discussions with my extended family members and decided to go and test the grounds- visited Chandni Chowk, GK, South Ex, Lajpat Nagar, Karol bag. Week 4: The biggest checklist of any wedding had to be finalized — Venue. The hunting began. The list of hotels made, availability checked, shortlisting done and weekend bookings done to finalize venue. Weekend 4: Four venues were visited, debates over the pros and cons done and venue finalized.

Month 5 — The one with self development. Till now life had been pretty exciting with something or the other going on. With full recovery of my vision and my therapist also showing confidence in my mental health recovery, I thought of starting a few things that I had always wanted to do or had stopped doing because of lack of time. I started exercising regularly, started writing again and started a food blog page on Instagram. I have already read two books in January and have started a third. I finally made up my mind to leave consulting since it wasn’t the best way forward. I would now look for opportunities that really excite me and provide a better work-life balance (to be honest I can switch at a lower pay scale given I am promised more time for my friends, family and more importantly myself).

I still feel a bit in awe as things moved too fast too soon. But the assuring part is that I have taken all these tough decisions keeping myself at priority and importantly with my complete body and mind. I am glad I took this break to sort out my personal life and I am sure the professional will fall in place eventually. Also, I would consider my savings a lifesaver since being financially independent gave me the confidence do things the way I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted. Hadn’t it been for my savings I wouln’t have been able to take such a decision. I feel that people who are in a continuous churn often forget to concentrate on themselves because it is institutionalized to dedicate 80% of our waking time to work. If it allows financially and professionally, professionals should consider taking 1–2 months of break every 2–3 years of their career to re-orient themselves and question themselves on what they really want from life. I would also encourage organizations to promote such a culture where it is normalized for people to take long breaks maybe after 2–3 years of their career so that the employee can recover from burnouts, work on their physical and mental health and spend quality time with their family. I am sure at the end of such breaks, employees will turn out to be happier, healthier and more focused and rejuvenated. All we need to be happy is to give ourselves time to course correct our life paths.