<story><title>Quitting my job has been the best thing I&apos;ve done for my career</title><url>https://www.joshuahu.io/blog/quitting/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>txcwpalpha</author><text>I did this, and unfortunately your fears became reality for me. Like you said, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do (including traveling, starting my own company, continuing education, side projects, etc). Almost 2 years into it I ended up just barely dabbling in each. I traveled for a few months, worked on some side projects, and learned some new things, but didn&amp;#x27;t really do anything &amp;quot;big&amp;quot; or traditionally &amp;quot;worthwhile&amp;quot; with my sabbatical. I look at my friends and colleagues who in this time period have gotten promotions, new jobs, MBAs, etc and I start feel like my time has been wasted. People keep telling me that once I join the workforce again that I will look back fondly on this time, but right now I definitely don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;The most frustrating thing I have experienced is that society in general is still not accepting of people taking &amp;quot;sabbatical&amp;quot; in their 20s. While about 10% of people think it&amp;#x27;s cool that I quit my job and am flying by the seat of my pants, the other 90% hear that I&amp;#x27;m unemployed and treat me like a pariah. It&amp;#x27;s been &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; eye opening to me just how linked your personal identity is to your job. And I don&amp;#x27;t mean job as in &amp;quot;I am a programmer&amp;quot;, but specifically the actual name of the company you are employed by. I&amp;#x27;ve had people be very interested in conversation with me at social events when I talk about work-related things, but when I actually say the words &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t currently work anywhere and am taking some time off&amp;quot;, those same people have literally picked up their drinks and walked away.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s particularly bad with recruiters now that I&amp;#x27;m ready to start looking for a new job again. Even though I left my company on extremely good terms (they literally begged me to stay!), recruiters seem to see that I left [insert major well respected company here] and assume that I must been have fired. Most still seem to think Google et al are some extremely coveted workplaces and can&amp;#x27;t imagine that someone would willingly leave them. It is a very tough hurdle to get over.</text></item><item><author>dunkelheit</author><text>Recently quite a few articles appeared on HN about escaping the rat race for a while and taking some time off. As someone who has a little savings and who is a bit burnt out I&amp;#x27;ve been toying with the idea myself quite a bit. My biggest fear is that because I have only a vague idea of what I want to do with my time, I will fritter away my sabbatical, not accomplish much and end up pretty much at the same point (but with less money). OTOH maybe my ideas about what I want to do are vague precisely because I don&amp;#x27;t have much time to flesh them out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adrianmonk</author><text>About accomplishment, maybe the thing you wanted out of escaping the rat race was to take a break from feeling like you constantly &lt;i&gt;did&lt;/i&gt; have to accomplish something.&lt;p&gt;As long as there isn&amp;#x27;t something seriously wrong (such as depression that leads to inability to enjoy pursuits), maybe that is OK. It could be important to be able to accept that you don&amp;#x27;t always have to accomplish something, and that your life doesn&amp;#x27;t have to be about maximizing how much you can accomplish. (Which is a different thing than saying it&amp;#x27;s OK to never accomplish anything or OK to consistently accomplish very little.) You don&amp;#x27;t recover from burnout or whatever else by driving yourself crazy with worry and guilt over how you aren&amp;#x27;t living up to some standard.&lt;p&gt;About the weird reactions, I&amp;#x27;ve been through that after making a similar choice, and I&amp;#x27;ve found that with some people, they are just not even slightly open-minded about it and they are going to judge you instantly. You can&amp;#x27;t do much about those people.&lt;p&gt;But with other people, their reaction will depend on how you present it to them. You&amp;#x27;ve just told them you&amp;#x27;re doing something far outside the social norm, and they&amp;#x27;re going to be thrown for a loop and wondering why and how to understand it. They don&amp;#x27;t know if you&amp;#x27;re a lazy, broke, aimless loser or a person who has a plan and is doing this for some kind of purpose and real benefit to making their life better overall. You&amp;#x27;re going to get a whole different reaction depending on whether you say &amp;quot;Uhh... so yeah, I&amp;#x27;m not working anywhere right now&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I was fortunate enough to be in a good place financially, and I really wanted to take a year off, so I am&amp;quot;. The second one signals that you&amp;#x27;re in charge, you&amp;#x27;re content with what you&amp;#x27;re doing, and your successful enough to give yourself the opportunity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Quitting my job has been the best thing I&apos;ve done for my career</title><url>https://www.joshuahu.io/blog/quitting/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>txcwpalpha</author><text>I did this, and unfortunately your fears became reality for me. Like you said, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do (including traveling, starting my own company, continuing education, side projects, etc). Almost 2 years into it I ended up just barely dabbling in each. I traveled for a few months, worked on some side projects, and learned some new things, but didn&amp;#x27;t really do anything &amp;quot;big&amp;quot; or traditionally &amp;quot;worthwhile&amp;quot; with my sabbatical. I look at my friends and colleagues who in this time period have gotten promotions, new jobs, MBAs, etc and I start feel like my time has been wasted. People keep telling me that once I join the workforce again that I will look back fondly on this time, but right now I definitely don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;The most frustrating thing I have experienced is that society in general is still not accepting of people taking &amp;quot;sabbatical&amp;quot; in their 20s. While about 10% of people think it&amp;#x27;s cool that I quit my job and am flying by the seat of my pants, the other 90% hear that I&amp;#x27;m unemployed and treat me like a pariah. It&amp;#x27;s been &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; eye opening to me just how linked your personal identity is to your job. And I don&amp;#x27;t mean job as in &amp;quot;I am a programmer&amp;quot;, but specifically the actual name of the company you are employed by. I&amp;#x27;ve had people be very interested in conversation with me at social events when I talk about work-related things, but when I actually say the words &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t currently work anywhere and am taking some time off&amp;quot;, those same people have literally picked up their drinks and walked away.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s particularly bad with recruiters now that I&amp;#x27;m ready to start looking for a new job again. Even though I left my company on extremely good terms (they literally begged me to stay!), recruiters seem to see that I left [insert major well respected company here] and assume that I must been have fired. Most still seem to think Google et al are some extremely coveted workplaces and can&amp;#x27;t imagine that someone would willingly leave them. It is a very tough hurdle to get over.</text></item><item><author>dunkelheit</author><text>Recently quite a few articles appeared on HN about escaping the rat race for a while and taking some time off. As someone who has a little savings and who is a bit burnt out I&amp;#x27;ve been toying with the idea myself quite a bit. My biggest fear is that because I have only a vague idea of what I want to do with my time, I will fritter away my sabbatical, not accomplish much and end up pretty much at the same point (but with less money). OTOH maybe my ideas about what I want to do are vague precisely because I don&amp;#x27;t have much time to flesh them out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nubbins</author><text>Not sure who your friends are but where I am half the young people are creatives or otherwise not traditionally full time employed and my experience has been people are far more likely to avoid you for being a boring banker&amp;#x2F;lawyer&amp;#x2F;accountant in a suit (which I used to be) than unemployed with a good story about what you are doing, which could spark a decent conversation.</text></comment>