As many of you know, I took a long-needed sabbatical recently, spending a
brief span of time intentionally unemployed before starting a new job.
During my respite, I learned a great deal about the world and about
myself, and I offer the following in hopes that it may help someone,
somewhere in their own journey.
First, foremost, and
surprisingly, my life of leisure taught me that I don't want to win the
lottery, and I'm fairly sure I'm going to suck at retirement. Having
nothing to do and nowhere to be sounds delightful beyond words until you
have nothing to do and nowhere to be. There's a huge qualitative
difference between surfing the web aimlessly while at work and doing the
same on your own time.
My lack of initiative
and inspiration during this time (which I like to call my Pajama Period)
was sobering. Which is important, because one of the few things I did
accomplish in my fallow era was learning to make a passable Sazerac. It
took some testing, but I highly recommend making the effort.
I
also read Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, which was entertaining,
if essentially a prose cartoon. I eagerly await the sequel, which I'm
told involves Lionel Simmons.
Like Brian Kelly,
I led a fairly talented team of young athletes to its second
consecutive loss to an inferior opponent. In my case, the U8 Loudoun
Cheetahs fell by a 2-1 score in a game they dominated, falling to 0-2.
Chalk up another failure for me. At least we had awesome postgame
snacks.
I tended the shit out of my yard, at
least until I ripped a big gash in my shin when a rock kicked up from my
weed/leg whacker. Then I tended to my wound.
Mercifully,
I returned to the ranks of the gainfully employed on Wednesday. I was
as surprised as you are to realize that I was happy to reenter the
working world. Classic case of being careful what you wish for, I
suppose, but the more important lesson is this: if you're too lazy to
plan your laziness, you get what you deserve.
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