There’s utility in taking time off.
Not a quantifiable utility, but a fountain of wisdom forever affecting your life’s experience.
It’s like when Hemmingway called Paris a “moveable feast.” That time you took to ponder and think things over will follow you wherever you go.
Here’s what I mean:
You need the space to sharpen your world perspective.
You need time to rest, observe, and explore what you really want.
Taking time off works best when you’re at a crossroads. When You don’t know where to take your career. When you’re trying to figure out where to take a relationship. Or maybe you’re thinking about moving.
It’s in those moments that you need space to look over all your options, and let’s face it, if you’re constantly on your phone, in and out of meetings, or out with your friends, then you aren’t thinking. That’s procrastinating.
The business consultant and writer Greg McKeown likes to say, “If you’re too busy to think then you’re too busy. Period.”
Here are two stories about taking time off that I found inspiring.
Find the space to sharpen your perspective
At 25 years old, Jim Koch was a rising star and a favorite son at Harvard Business School, where he pursued a joint JD and MBA. You can imagine his parent’s shock when their young prodigy dropped out of school and joined Outward Bound, a wilderness guide and outdoor education program.
Everyone expected a 6-month to year-long sabbatical — enough time to shake out his psychotic lapse.
Jim had other ideas. For the next three and a half years, he lived in the wild leading hiking expeditions and teaching people how to repel down cliffs. He even had a stint in British Colombia, an ecosystem with notoriously ruthless flora and fauna. To work in BC means your job is to ensure nobody dies.
“I didn’t want to make decisions that would bind me for the rest of my life,” He told Guy Raz on NPR. “Also I realized that there are only things you can do in your twenties, that if you don’t do them, you will never be able to do them.”
To most young professionals, present company included, the idea of taking three and a half years away from your career’s advent seems immature. There’s a perceived risk that we will never recover. But there are also undervalued benefits to your mind and spirit.
“I didn’t want to make decisions that would bind me for the rest of my life.”
The wild taught Jim how to slow down and how to fail. It also taught him the irrelevance of corporate anxieties compared to unforgiving mother nature.
Jim developed a rare lens and saw things that would blow right by most people.
About ten years later, Jim would make his parent's heads spin for a second time. He quit his six-figure executive position with the Boston Consulting Group and founded the Boston Beer Company, later renamed Samuel Adams. One of the most successful American beer companies ever.
Use the time to rest, observe, and reflect
Winston Churchill also took a break from public life. A decade-long hiatus lasting from 1929 up to the start of WWII. Churchill suffered a humiliating defeat that pretty much exiled him from parliament. He had a few opportunities to come back but decided to rest instead.
Lucky for us, that turned out to be the right move.
While Europe watched the rise of fascism, Churchill spent the 1930s in his garden painting landscapes, writing in his bathtub, and consuming every chicken at Chartwell. But most importantly, Churchill paid attention.
He was one of the few politicians anywhere who dissected Mien Kampf and called it out for what it was: the ramblings of a madman.
When Hitler finally struck Europe, Churchill was ready. He had studied the enemy and had the stamina for a long fight.
A lion called from a mighty slumber.
Forced yourself to be alone
Imagine if we allowed ourselves to take the time to rest and explore what we really want. How would this alter our life’s decisions?
Churchill later wrote about his time off. He said, “Every prophet must be forced into the wilderness where they undergo solitude, deprivation, reflection, and meditation.”
Perhaps Jim Koch read Churchill and took it literally.
Or perhaps leaders share a knack for getting outside of their comfort zone, for taking a deep breath before the plunge of battle.
So go ahead, take some time away from your career and do something wild. It may just be the most important thing you ever do.