Sabbatical: Mapping Questions
reflecting on my sabbatical year, 2022
Welcome to The Flâneurs Project. This post is a continuation of A One Year Sabbatical Mapped In Four Countries, in which I go beyond mapping my sabbatical year through the places I lived and explore the questions that changed along the way.
In my previous essay, I tried to understand why I perceived my sabbatical year, 2022, as one of the most difficult years of my life.
In this essay, I started by briefly sharing my thoughts on permanently leaving a home in Arth-Goldau, Switzerland, followed by living for a few months in Brașov, Romania. After a short break in Gnevkow, in the German countryside, I made a quick and chaotic move to Berlin with the intention of returning there for good, only to finally end up in The Hague, The Netherlands, by the North Sea.
Mapping Years
Whenever I feel lost, I start mapping the year ahead, anchoring myself in the moments I look forward to and the moments I want to experience. If I need a boost of hope, I map the previous years as well. Recollecting feels like reminding myself that things take time, and some of them will eventually become reality. It’s a practice that gives me a great sense of agency and makes me terribly excited about the future.
Going through old notebooks and looking back at my 2022 mapping, notes, and questions, I understand now why I felt that my year was so difficult and why I couldn’t enjoy the big adventure in front of me.
The main goal of my sabbatical, ever since it was just an idea in my head, was to take a year or two off from working full-time, live on my savings back home in Eastern Europe while traveling from time to time, secure a few creative gigs with friends to keep me afloat, and eventually redirect and remake my life.
Mapping Questions
I remember that I started my sabbatical year with the following open question: how do I really want to live my life?
However, by March 2022, my fears overtook me, and I replaced the open-ended adventurous question, which felt expansive and promising, with “how can I break into a UX career?” So, I shifted into a career-switch sabbatical, which proved disastrous for my overall well-being later on.
Why did I do this? I wanted to land on safe, familiar ground, even though that brought me further away from any landing line I could possibly wish for.
Looking back, I have some compassion for my fear and for forgetting the main question. I was moving countries yet again, going through a difficult separation, trying to count every penny since I was living on my savings for a long time, and I simply couldn’t embrace the unknown. I wanted stability more than anything. But then again, this was a sabbatical year—the exact opposite of having things neatly placed in front of you. It was supposed to be a messy year, a year of difficult unlearning.
My turning point, ten months into my sabbatical and already facing crisis after crisis, was when I reminded myself of my initial goal, which encapsulated a sense of adventure and a foolish, yet reassuring trust.
It’s easy to criticize myself now or to see more clearly, but back then I wanted a sustainable income at the end of the road, even though that was already accessible and easier to get in my old career. The specific office or freelance job didn’t matter to me in the end, as my job is my way of sustaining myself financially for now. Finding how I want to walk through life is what mattered more during my sabbatical.
Questions as Anchors
The questions that we carry, especially on new journeys, can serve as an anchor when we are drifting away. Questions are anchors in turbulent times.
Sometimes we fixate on one particular answer and forget that the question might have changed along the way or that it wasn’t the right question to ask in the first place.
Returning
Fear is often misleading, and if we give in, it sometimes directs us straight toward what we wanted to escape all along. Courage, on the other hand, carves different paths in front of us. Even when we fail, we keep going, and more and more paths unfold. Abundance begets abundance.
In the end, I returned right where I started before my sabbatical.
The only thing that changed is that I see clearly, even as I write this, the different paths unfolding. And I think I’m carrying the right question.
I am just beginning.
Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your messages, notes, and comments.