So I Took a Sabbatical: Reflecting on the Past

This is part 2 in a series of my sabbatical experience.

The first step was straightforward: I put in my two three and half weeks, transitioned my activities, and left.

It was that easy.

The hard part, however, was finding and defining the "work" that I had in front of me. What was my objective? How do I know what success or failure is? What the heck do I do every day?

Admittedly, I had a moment of serene, quiet panic. All of my long term goals that I had set for myself were now wholly malleable. The short term, day-to-day decisions were no longer as simple as looking at my mobile device and reacting to (or planning ahead for) notifications or projects set by someone else.

I had one project: me.

So, I took the time to reflect on what led me up to this point. I avoided the broad, vague questions (what does happiness mean to me?) and focused on smaller, specific things that I could focus my attention on. Those questions included (but were certainly not limited to):

• What human interactions do I find valuable?
• What were the things that I did professionally that I enjoyed and produced favorable outcomes?
• What was the nature of the struggles I had to overcome? And if I couldn't overcome them, why not?
• What did I consciously put off in my personal life because I was "too busy" with work?
• If I could do anything in a given day, with no constraints, what would I do and why would I do it?

The answers to those questions required a critical look in my decision making over the course of my career. It wasn't easy, but over time I was able to come to some honest realizations that shouldn't have surprised me.

I was fortunate enough to have an internship during college and a job secured right after graduating. I was eager to prove to others -- and myself -- that I had what it takes to make it in the "real world". While my work ethic, technical acumen, and good 'ole fashioned "want to" were all skills that I honed in anticipation for any opportunity that may come my way, I was not prepared for corporate politics.

Call them "life skills", "street smarts", or any other similar, colloquial term, but whatever it was I didn't have it. I couldn't understand why I couldn't talk to person X because person Y in department Z decided on a strict policy of no communication because of incident ABC.

We're on the same team, right?

So I started to pay more attention to the interactions going on around me. What I heard, saw, and experienced quickly washed away any naivete I had coming into the corporate world.

Office politics were real. Personal agendas were sometimes placed ahead of the company's (or team's) objectives. Equality, on every level, was frustratingly relative. As an African American man living in the southern United States, I was sensitive to these interactions.

Climbing the ladder only illuminated this dichotomy even more. As I manager, I vehemently argued on behalf of one of my best employees went through a six month employee salary vetting process to address a significant gender pay scale gap where ultimately I was told, That's just not how things work here. I'm not sure you know the market very well. Tell her she'll have to deal with it.

(That'll be a topic for another post.)

My personal life, on the other hand, was not as well handled as I thought. I rarely worked on or during a holiday and I was conscious of my device usage. Whenever I came home, it was time to spend with my SO: no laptop and controlled device usage.

So what was the problem? While I may have been at Thanksgiving dinner, opening Christmas presents, or watching The Walking Dead with my SO (she's still #TeamShane while I'm #TeamRick... I know, right?), my mind was always on something work related. I wasn't present.

My body was there, but my mind was always drifting back to work.

I mentioned this to a colleague of mine before going on a long vacation overseas and she made a suggestion that, in essence, affected me deeply: In your out of office, say that you absolutely won't have access to your email. Delete your work email and notification apps. Life is short: enjoy it.

She's crazy I thought. But, I wasn't paying for an overseas data plan so... why not? I could always reinstall when I connected to WiFi anyway (and I had all of the credentials, servers, and VPN information memorized... don't judge me). So that's what I did. I delegated and prepped as best as I could.

And...

...I nearly had a panic attack when we arrived at our destination. Day two was a little better. And day three?

Every single trip thereafter, I've done the exact same thing. The withdrawals are a little less severe each time, but the reward is totally worth it.

And although I had learned how to go on vacation, I still struggled with balancing fitness and health in my routine. I was very athletic growing up, but the corporate lifestyle was literally killing me. I skipped breakfast regularly in order to get in a few more minutes of research and/or emails before getting to the office. Working through lunch (without food) was more common than I'd care to admit. After work, I'd grab whatever I could since I didn't take the time to prepare anything for dinner. And since I hadn't eaten all day, I'd eat from dinner time until I went to bed to try to get some restless sleep.

And the cookies! My god... the cookies...

I digress...

Exercise? No time for that either. I'd always take the stairs if I had the opportunity or go with the standing desk option, but it wasn't the same.

And the worst part?

I knew the damage I was causing to myself, but the bitter truth was that I simply didn't care. It was easier to not eat until famished, grab something through a drive thru, and stay productive (or at least, my warped perception of being productive) with work than it was to simply set aside some time to either cook ahead or spend thirty minutes to an hour on some kind of physical activity.

In the end, I discovered a lot of truths about myself. More importantly, I also decided on what I wanted going forward. Rather than writing down a bucket list style of objectives to travel the world (yes), go skydiving (only if there's something REALLY wrong with the plane), or going to Comic Con (YES), I came up with 3 abstract objectives that would serve as a set of guidelines for making choices within my life.

These 3 guidelines, presented with no hierarchy since they are all equally important, now guide me in making day-to-day or long term decisions:

• Strength: Fitness and health are very important to me. The decisions I make should allow me to maintain a healthy lifestyle and be physically fit. Mental strength is also just as important.
• Freedom: The choices I make should have a minimal impact on my physical, financial, or spiritual freedom. If I want to take a trip, I'd like to be able to do so without much fanfare. I'd like to have the strength to enable the freedom to trek the the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu if I feel like it.
• Purpose: To bring humans together through collaboration, communication, and sharing of ideas to achieve great things. No compromises on equality. Whether through face-to-face communication or via technology, I love working with humans in order to achieve common goals, whether that means working on a better relationship with my SO or building some cool new tech that allows humans to interact in new and interesting ways.

Reflecting on my past experience was necessary in order to come to this realization. Once I realized that these guidelines were how I wanted to live my life, everything else started to fall into place.