What I Learned Taking a Year Off at 37 Years Old
I recently ended a year away from the corporate world. During that period, I learned a lot about myself. It was a time of creativity, of learning, of embracing what’s important in life … and about understanding what those things are. I go into a lot of personal details in this. If that’s not your jam, you shouldn’t continue reading (but I love you regardless).
From September 2023 to August 2024, I took a break. For years leading up to that, I’d exhibited all the symptoms of burnout: emotional and physical exhaustion, weight gain, mood issues, and a general feeling that I was trapped in a life I hadn’t signed up for. I was conflicted about how I felt because I had a good job that compensated me well, and I know what it’s like to struggle financially. How could I just quit in my prime earning years?
I realized that the logical reasons not to quit paled in comparison with my mental and physical health. So, I had to quit. But, my break didn’t turn out exactly like I’d expected. I thought the time away would be joyous, relaxing, refreshing. Sometimes, it was. Mostly, it was filled with the confusing ordeal of understanding myself, and the anxiety-fueled work that goes into that.
Everyone will learn a different set of truths about themselves when they take a break. Everyone should take a break, if at all possible. It could be a month. It could be a few. It could be a year or more — but, it doesn’t have to be. The point is, if you’re struggling with your life and have the financial means to, you should create enough space where you can start to look inward.
Here are the five truths I learned about myself after taking a year ofF (in no particular order).
I need people. I spent a lot of time alone. That’s what you do when you’re not working, when everyone else is. I was alone with my thoughts, and those thoughts had a way of blurring the view I had of myself. I need people to set a benchmark for what it should feel like to be human. I found that I’d go several days in a row without interacting with anyone in-person. Isolation is like gasoline when you have smoldering depression and anxiety.
I can’t make my creativity my job. This is the one I struggled with most. I’d always envisioned myself as someone who can get lost in creativity — whether it be writing, making music, learning new skills or simply being consumed by creative works. I’d always wanted to learn to make sneakers, so I took courses and bought equipment. As soon as I learned to make sneakers and started a company dedicated to helping people better connect with their moms (Go Call Your Mom), I realized how relying on my creativity to pay my mortgage made me less focused on outputs — what I was doing creatively — and more focused on outcomes — how popular it would be, how many views it would get … the vanity stuff. I couldn’t be conceptual.
Corporate America is necessary. I’d originally written this as, “necessary evil.” As I thought about it more, I don’t think Corporate America is evil at all. I think sometime around the turn of the 20th century, the idea of craft was subverted by the need to be efficient. Take shoes, for example: It used to be that one person, a cobbler, would conceptualize a shoe and make it from outsole to tongue — and everything in between. Then, companies realized you could make more shoes by specializing people for each part. Someone pressed and cut outsoles. Another person attached the tongue to the toe box. Someone else who probably had never made a pair on their own looked it over at the end for quality control. The same thing happened with jobs in Corporate America. And it turns out, I’ve always wanted to be more of a cobbler than an outsole cutter. So, why is Corporate America necessary? It can help you with other stuff like eating and sleeping indoors.
This, too, shall pass. There were so many good times in the eleven months I was away from work. I went through many positively profound moments. I got baptized at 37. I went to Cape Cod for the first time. I spent a week in rural Colombia at a childhood friend’s wedding. I started a company. I learned to make shoes for myself, and then I made shoes for my mom. I also experienced moments that were so dark that I find myself lacking the verbal skills to describe them. My cat Biggie, whom I’d consider one of my best friends, passed away. I missed the people I’d lost: my dad, my best friend Geoff, my grandma. I would sometimes break into a sobbing fit with no explanation. People who loved me tried to help, but they couldn’t pull me out of it. Reminding myself that the darkness would pass was the only thing that helped.
You don’t need to love your job, but you need to bring your love to it. I’ve never been able to treat my job like it’s just a job. I work in communications, and mostly in situations where I’ve been on call for a crisis. Even when I wasn’t working on a critical situation, I wasn’t able to disconnect from the worry about a pitch, a tense upcoming meeting, or generally knowing that there’s more I could be doing today to make tomorrow’s schedule less hectic. As part of that always-on work mentality, I’ve brought my full self to every place I’ve worked. I’m the guy who brings his sax to work and plays “Careless Whisper” at live-band karaoke. I’m the guy who wears a different male romper to work five days in a row. If you know me at work, then soon you’ll know me for real. Moving forward, I’m going to try to do that a little less and see what happens.
I learned so much about myself in the eleven months I wasn’t working. The most important thing I learned was to love myself. And, to do that, I had to put in the work. If you’re going through something similar and want to talk with someone, please reach out.
Go call your mom.
With love,
Matt