Keep moving! 

You need to keep running to stay ahead in the race!! 

There’s no time to waste, every second is precious!!!

“I take a (slow) tea break and think about where I am in life. And suddenly, I realise that it has been almost a year in the new job and the calendar is about to turn once again. What am I doing with my life?” How many times have you had this feeling? For me, this question eventually led to taking a career sabbatical – a decision that changed my perspective completely.

Modern city life is fast. So fast at times, that we don’t notice life passing by. That’s the nature of capitalism. That’s how corporates work. Tasks are laid out from morning till night. We keep jumping the hoops, ticking off each task and then go to bed. Next morning, the cycle repeats. There is hardly any time to think about these tasks. Because if you do, you will miss out on a bunch of them and end up feeling inadequate.

A city that speeds up life

This is more so in a city like Mumbai. It never sleeps! I’ve had the opportunity to work in Mumbai for a couple of months. I remember dreading it when I got the assignment. The Mumbai hustle was not something I enjoyed or wanted to be a part of. But within a matter of hours, I was swallowed by the machine. I was no longer an individual – I was a small ball rolling around a complex apparatus – moving from a tightly packed bus to an overloaded shared auto, till I reached my destination. Work was tough and kept the brain occupied the entire day. I never felt the stress that I anticipated and kept going with the flow. Life was easy – there wasn’t a lot to think – just keep doing.

In what felt like a week, I completed those months and was on my flight back to Bangalore! It was a numbing feeling – as if time had fast-forwarded without me realising it. 

A “chill” city

I was glad to be back in Bangalore – a city I always wanted to live in. The Bangalore of 2013-14 was the ideal city in my books – it had good weather, was well connected, had ample opportunities, good areas to live in and plenty of good food. The people were nice and the city itself had a “chill” vibe. I remember days when I would go on a walk on the by lanes of MG Road during my lunch break and it would feel so nice and calming!

Fast forward to 2024, Bangalore has been reduced to a shadow of the city that I knew from 10 years ago. Apparently, I was not the only one who noticed all the above qualities of this city (duh!). While its “live-ability” has reduced significantly (I’ve been privileged to not bear the brunt of it to a large extent), some of the above qualities remain. And the important one for me is the “chill” vibe.

I’m grateful to have been around people who have reinforced in me the need to slow down, learn and improve as a human, spend time with loved ones and “experience” life. Thanks to this, I haven’t really been sucked into the corporate “rat race” entirely. Drawing the lines, taking time off, and having a life outside of work – I’ve been lucky to prioritize these decently well over the years.

Entering a new phase of life

A defining moment for me was when my son was born. I was very clear on the kind of father and husband I wanted to be – that meant I had to re-engineer my day to make a lot more time. My job at the time was designed for bachelors (to some extent married folks without kids) – the base assumption was to dedicate life to work. Realization dawned on me that the definition of “work-life balance” had to change further. The perfectly balanced DINK (double-income-no-kids) lifestyle had to change and I needed to break the cycle. NOW!

The idea of taking a career sabbatical started forming when my son was 5 months old. I wanted to spend more time with him and the family. Even though work was entirely remote due to Covid, the days and nights, weekdays and weekends were packed with work – especially because of the festive season. I had seen a close friend opting for the sabbatical policy and opened my mind to it.

Taking a Career Sabbatical – The Decision

I felt that it was the right time for me to exercise the same. Kudos to my company for having a sabbatical policy in the first place. I am super grateful that my circumstances and privilege allowed me to take this pause!

So, I completed the festive period and as soon as we entered the lean months, I informed my manager about my decision. It was planned as a 4 month break. I thought I’d quickly get used to it – after all, I had a good work-life balance, no? Apparently, no!

Struggling to slow down

It was like taking an addict off drugs. It took me close to 2 months to accept that it was ok to spend a day without working all day. I used to panic because I didn’t have meetings to attend, no deadlines to meet. To compensate, I stuffed my day with a ton of things to do – just to make myself feel that I’m not wasting time. Thankfully, most of these things were with Parth – like his morning routine, daily baths, evening walks and night-time reading. No regrets – this was the primary reason for taking the break anyway.

I eased into the new routine along with my baby boy. Ultimately, it reached a point where I stopped noticing whether it was a weekday or a weekend. I felt completely present in the moment – not worrying about deadlines or chasing targets. It felt amazing. Why couldn’t it always be like this?

Realizations and outcomes

That’s when I realised what people mean when they say – when you’re doing your dream job, you never need to worry about retiring. Every day is the ideal day. You don’t need to put it off till retirement. What used to seem utopian suddenly seemed achievable. How? I still didn’t know – I would end up in a corporate soon enough. But I knew I could switch my brain to be more present when needed. The break had opened me up to new possibilities and impacted me way more than I anticipated.

Looking back, taking a career sabbatical was one of the best decisions I made. The break was really productive in many aspects – I figured our family finances, re-balanced investment portfolios, bought insurance (yes!), started using my calendar more productively, read a bunch of books, figured out my career anchors and also made a note on the identity and habits I wanted to create for myself. Now that I look back after almost 3 years, I can see the various tracks that were set in motion in those months. In fact, it has also helped me redesign my current work-life in a way that I’m not sacrificing one for the other (will keep this for another time).

I don’t think I could have achieved even half of this while working full-time on a demanding job. Things actually Moved Faster by Slowing Down!

Finding your balance

Here’s another important bit. While taking a career sabbatical might not be possible for everyone, and that’s perfectly okay, the lessons I learned about slowing down have been invaluable.

Even if you do have the luxury to slow down, it is important to recognize when to hustle and push things harder.

At the end of the day, too much of anything is not a good thing and we all have to find our own paths to balance!

I’ll end this post with something that my first manager told me when I told him about my panic after taking the sabbatical decision. He said –

“In life, always keep upgrading yourself to become a Ferrari. When you get there, you don’t need to feel compelled to drive at 200 kmph ALL THE TIME! You can slow down, enjoy life, experience it and speed up later when you need to. Just don’t forget that you’re still a Ferrari. The choice is in your hands.“

Check out some other non-travel blogs about life, habits and more here.