Stop the sabbatical

You know every little dent in the office wall, the bags under your eyes reach your ankles and you can only think of three things: beach, snorkeling with sea turtles, and rest. Just some time for yourself. But is a sabbatical really that blissful?

A sabbatical: it's trendier than ever. More and more people are ‘going for it’. Your career is fine, but it’s no longer ‘wow’ every day. On that rainy day in November, you think: damn, it’s time for a change. Grumpily, you drag yourself from Monday to Friday and back again. You no longer get energy from those daily hassles and you want to know what will really give you a boost in life again. One day, you know for sure. Complaining is pointless, it’s time for a grown-up step. Therefore, you take time off to discover who you really are. A week in Italy every summer no longer works to think clearly, you need something different. Life is more than this one desk, racing from home to the office at eight in the morning, and working overtime on the weekend because otherwise your colleague will run off with the promotion? Life is more than being glued to your computer? More than thirty-eight notes in your agenda before Tuesday? Yes. It can’t go on like this until your retirement. There must be more. You take a long break: half a year. Eight months. Well, maybe even a year. You travel, read books, do volunteer work, and take courses and training to remember who you are again. To discover what the meaning of life is, what you should do with your time on this planet. After working hard, you can finally relax hard. You embrace your well-deserved sabbatical. But that turns out not to be such a smart plan.

A cocktail in your hand instead of a laptop. You go on unpaid leave for half a year and cheerfully wave everyone goodbye at the office. See you later. You know better. Freedom is the ultimate happiness. Right?

Social pressure

A sabbatical lasts at least a few months and is also called unpaid leave. You trade your salary for free time. But taking a sabbatical is not always the solution to problems at work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer all your pressing life questions. Have you ever realized that there is also social pressure surrounding a sabbatical? As in: you really must go to the Bahamas for at least eight weeks to learn surfing, to Costa Rica to work with children in an orphanage, and also go to China to pick up some Mandarin lessons. You have to do something really cool with the time you have off, because hey, now you can. You must do something useful. You get strange looks if you just lie on the couch in the Netherlands and do nothing more than have lunch with your girlfriend, shop with your mother, and take your rest. Then you quickly become a ‘loser’ in many eyes who ‘can’t handle work’. If you go backpacking and live in hostels full of cockroaches in Australia, then you’re cool and ‘it’s a perfect break from that busy job’. Everyone around you creates that social pressure. It hangs over the name ‘sabbatical’. That creates a certain kind of stress. Sabbaticals raise questions among your loved ones. Say you’re temporarily stopping your job and you inevitably get the same question bounced back within three seconds: ‘What are you going to do then?’ If you don’t have a concrete plan yet, the comments will start flying. ‘Honey, darling, what a shame if you do nothing with those months without work! Go to Africa! Go to Antarctica, build an igloo, buy a husky and see something of the world! Make something happen!’ If you do have a concrete plan, it also brings comments. ‘Are you really going to Africa? Way too dangerous. And Antarctica? Are you crazy! There’s no daylight and you’ll get completely depressed. And you don’t even like dogs. Just be normal and go to Texel.’ In short: it’s never good.

Besides your friends, family, and partner, you also have to deal with yourself. Unfortunately, being away from your job doesn’t solve all your problems, even if you might think so. People also have too high expectations of finally-thank-god-after-all-those-years-of-working-your-ass-off-being-free. ‘If I no longer have to stare at Excel sheets, have to chat with colleagues I find boring, and if I no longer have to attend six hours of meetings a day, then... Then I’ll be happy! A new person! A better version of myself! Then I’ll really start living! Then the world will have color!’ With these kinds of thoughts, things go horribly wrong. You just push all your issues and troubles aside. You think it’s all about your job, but that’s not the case. When you return from your half-year stay in Bali, you’re just your old self again. You don’t suddenly discover your life happiness when you’re lounging in a hammock in Kuala Lumpur. You bring your sadness with you, including your life baggage and your doubts and insecurities. The worries you have about your children, your parents, your friends, and your finances... You have those with the sand between your toes too. Even if that beach full of waving palm trees seems to solve so much, it’s a misconception.

Still do it

So why is it still so trendy to take that mega break? Research shows that one in five millennials today struggles with depression. We are gloomy, sad, unhappy. We work too much, too hard, too often. And that’s not all. We also have to make big trips, get promotions four times a year, have babies, get married in Ibiza, and be nice to our parents. Moreover, we have eight hundred and four best friends, sports clubs that email us asking where we’ve been, and colleagues who organize weekly drinks that we can’t miss. Because then you’ll miss that promotion and be ‘that loser’ again. We feel the pressure. Always. Everywhere. We are never offline. Do you not email your work when you’re lying on the beach in Spain during those tight three days off? Are you crazy? That can’t be. A week without posting an Insta Story? Are you still alive? You’re always busy, rushed, and panicked, so you think: stop all that working. Sounds logical. Yet psychologists say it doesn’t help at all whether you work or not. That constant ‘having to be on’ remains. Even when you’re free from the nine-to-five life. The social pressure continues to haunt you. The only gift you get is a gap in your CV.

How to approach a sabbatical wisely? You can read about it in our magazine. The latest edition is waiting for you at AKO and the Read Shop.