The Break

“Can you take a break for a couple of days?”. This innocuous question caused me to break down. Looking back it was a break through. I was stuck in a job doing what I didn’t like. Progressing in my career meant getting to do more of this stuff that I didn’t like. I felt trapped. I was running on fumes. Now I was out of fuel. The next day, I quit. I didn’t know then but this was the start of a new journey.

It was very weird in the beginning. It took some getting used to. I woke up and didn’t have anything to look forward to in the day. I checked my phone. No overnight emails or slack messages to respond to. Nothing on the calendar either. I didn’t know how to not do anything. I tried reading a book. I couldn’t read 10 pages. I tried watching Netflix. I couldn’t. What was going on?

I was forcing myself to take a break. And it wasn’t going well. My routine had disappeared while that of everyone else around me was intact. There was this constant thread running in the background - isn’t there something that you need to do? What are you not doing that you should be doing instead? This went on for a couple of weeks. Then the body slowly got used to this freedom. I use the word body knowingly. It was a visceral feeling. I now realized, I was free to structure my days. I could create my own routine. But I was no expert at lifestyle design. I had never done it before.

I didn’t consciously try to shape my routine. That would have been a fool’s errand. Impossible. Instead, I did what I do best. Pick a large hairy audacious project and dived headfirst into it. It soon started conusming all my time. The best thing was - no one cared about this project of mine. I did however much I felt like doing on any particular day. This was fun. After a long time, I was building something that I wanted and the way I wanted. And the best part, it was for myself. 

Having fun building stuff had amazing side effects. I relaxed. I became comfortable reading books, and watching movies again. I was even comfortable not doing anything. I could write. I could play with my son. I could build the stuff I wanted. It was liberating. 

It’s been over a year now. I am still trying to design my day. Things keep changing every few weeks. But a few things stay constant. Working on projects that are much larger than you, spending time with the family, meeting friends, and having a thread running in a loop at the back of my head where I am trying to solve a bug or a problem for the project I am working on.

I can’t express how grateful I am for the privilege of getting to design my life. But there are a few things I miss. The biggest is the monthly salary. To compensate for that, the next book on my reading list is - Paise kamane ke 101 tareeke. I need to finish it soon so that I can present a report to my better half and my parents. I sincerely hope one of the 101 ways works for me this time.