Taking time off

Taking time off from work is strange. I don’t mean vacation, but literally stop working for a few months.

We’re being raised our entire life learning different skills in school, all to be able to go to work and make a living. Working is what you do until you get really old. And not working, is only for really really rich people, a kind of luxury that no one should be able to afford. Right?

But what if you’re not rich and just want to take some time off? Travel the world and get to know a friend better? Is that ok?

Just days before heading out on our big trip, I have this sense of guilt. It’s not towards someone else, or the company I’m taking a sabbatical from. Everyone around me, family, friends and colleagues included, have been really supportive and encouraging since our journey was announced. The guilt is towards myself.

All I’ve known since I was 12 years old was working. Then I was selling newspapers during weekends to afford motocross racing. Since I was 17 I worked weekends on the go-kart track to afford kart racing. And since the day I graduated from the gymnasium (I didn’t go to university) I’ve worked hard to become skilled at what I do for a living - building stuff on the Internet.

And now suddenly, I’m not supposed to work? I’m taking time off to just be, and see? Somehow I feel guilty.

This is something that I’m gonna have to work on during the trip. Because I know I’ve earned it.

Next time I’ll blog, I’ll be in Indonesia!