Taking a Sabbatical

[FidelCashflow]

I just got my CA an am not really enjoying life right now. I'm thinking maybe I should save up this year and take 6 months to a year next year to explore the world and find out what I really want to do with my life. Maybe bum around europe or something and work menial jobs for spare cash.

Has anyone ever done this? Did it help?

 

[Teacher]

(1.) What's a CA?

(2.) I have never had even close to enough money to just bum around for half a year.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

I just got my CA an am not really enjoying life right now. I'm thinking maybe I should save up this year and take 6 months to a year next year to explore the world and find out what I really want to do with my life. Maybe bum around europe or something and work menial jobs for spare cash.

Has anyone ever done this? Did it help?

You're not going to "find yourself" by bumming around if you can't find yourself while you work.

 

[Piobaire]

Do it now, as the longer you progress in the life, the harder it will be to step away from it.

 

[Manton]

I did this for three years. It was called "graduate school."

 

[Stazy]

Originally Posted by Teacher

(1.) What's a CA?

(2.) I have never had even close to enough money to just bum around for half a year.

1) Chartered Accountant - It's a Canadian accounting designation

2) No comment

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

I just got my CA an am not really enjoying life right now. I'm thinking maybe I should save up this year and take 6 months to a year next year to explore the world and find out what I really want to do with my life. Maybe bum around europe or something and work menial jobs for spare cash.

Has anyone ever done this? Did it help?

You seem pretty confused, so what makes you think you will find the right place to explore and find your calling in life?

Travel, but don't go into it thinking it will change your life. Enjoy your youth.

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by Manton

I did this for three years. It was called "graduate school."

Same here. Two years only though.

 

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

You're not going to "find yourself" by bumming around if you can't find yourself while you work.
And vice versa.

(Yet leading a more hermetic (e.g. secluded) and/or philosophical life gives one the opportunity to reflect upon oneself...to confront oneself is very scary for most people and that's why they love some form of work: it distracts them from themselves. It 'fulfills' them to the extent that they project themselves into it. Philosophy and all higher thought was born out of leisure.)

Fidelcashflow: I have never done any menial work but I just read Orwells 'Down and Out in Paris and London' where he- an Old Etonian- describes both buming and working...very interesting, although both don't seem to be very satisfactory. If you have money and leisure though, then it's another level (if you have some intelligence, education and a strong will that is).

 

[Jekyll]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

Maybe bum around europe or something and work menial jobs for spare cash.

From what I've heard, it's actually really difficult to find that kind of work in Europe.

 

[StephenHero]

Originally Posted by Jekyll

From what I've heard, it's actually really difficult to find that kind of work in Europe.

+1. Unless you can draw portraits in 20 minutes.

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

If you're scrappy and know people in the traveler/punk scene you can totally do it in America and I hear it's even easier in Europe. Being able to busk is really big as is having a low standard of living.

 

[MetroStyles]

I did 3 months in asia.

 

[twotrey]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Do it now, as the longer you progress in the life, the harder it will be to step away from it.

Agreed. You better find out, in advance, what sort of work you can score at your destination.

 

[rioni]

go for it