I have decided to take a year off work. I just got divorced and was fortunate enough to sell my house and have a couple of bonuses coming. It's not going to be easy and I will have to live frugally and then try and find something else after the year is up but I think I can do this.
I'm 44 and I just really want to experience freedom during the day, all day, every day, while I am still relatively young. I think I have been very lucky and am very privileged to even have the chance to do this and therefore should grab it with both hands.
The things is, it's taken me a lot of work to shake of this kind of free-floating guilt about taking such a long break. I think we as humans are getting conditioned to thinking that we should be working, we should be in an office or something, and if we're not we're either slacking off or taking an enormous risk with our future. Capitalism and grind culture has really got into us to the extent where I think a lot of people feel somehow bad for wanting to get away from it and just be a person for a while.
Life shouldn't be about struggling to eat, and it certainly shouldn't be spent in a cubicle under bright, punishing strip lights. After my year is up I'll be back on the hamster wheel to make rent, but, in the meantime, I am going to take that extended breather and give myself a long moment to feel some sort of peace.