Comment by dagss

Comment by dagss a day ago

3 replies

This is not advice to just follow for anyone. For some people this may be right, but for others it can be dangerous and a disaster. (At least if there's any chance "months" turns into "years".)

If one is of verge of depression (or similar stuff) then removing routines in your life is in general not going to fix things, but make things worse.

A long vacation or unpaid leave, sure. But quitting work without a concrete plan to return and definite exit point feels dangerous. If one isn't in the right place mentally suddenly you are just stuck at home watching Netflix in a downward spiral, instead of all those exciting things you planned on doing but somehow don't end up doing.

I remember seeing a post from someone on HN that started in this place, then did quit work for a year. It seemed quite obvious reading about that journey that attempting a "reset" just made things worse.

impendia 19 hours ago

A variant of this advice, that avoids some of the pitfalls, is to take time off to do something structured and specific.

Personally, in between jobs a long time ago, I chose to walk the Henro Trail, an approximately 800-mile Buddhist pilgrimage trail in Shikoku, Japan. To make a long story short, it was the experience of a lifetime.

  • matthalvorson 16 hours ago

    have you written about your walk anywhere? Would love to hear more

    • impendia 6 hours ago

      I haven't, but others have written about the same trip. There's lots of material online these days, I'm not really familiar with it but if you google "Shikoku henro pilgrimage", all the hits will be about the same trip I took.

      There is a wonderful book, Japanese Pilgrimage by Oliver Statler. He goes into the history of the pilgrimage and of Kobo Daishi, the monk whose path the trail follows. He also discusses his own personal experience walking the trail.