A sabbatical and a blog.
Where I am now: my sabbatical
Two weeks ago I left my job to start a sabbatical that will last for the remainder of my 20s. The CIPD report that over 90,000 people in the UK take some kind of a career break every year, whether to take care of others (such as a child or parent) or for themselves. And yet, in the run-up to requesting my sabbatical, I felt a bubbling of negative feelings for wanting this for myself. Had I given up?
I had up to that point lived my life with both feet planted on a proverbial ‘achievement escalator’ - focussed on achieving good grades at school, wanting to do well at university, and coveting the right career. This wasn’t down to a need to tick boxes but rather because the things I was naturally drawn towards - learning and reading - led me to find direction and purpose in these parts of life. However as time went on, and I was able to have more freedom in my choices, I started to feel a growing sense of restlessness. Was this going to be my routine for the next 40 years? With my generation’s pension age reaching 67 (for time time being!), this question was not hyperbole but reality.
At the same time, acute shocks such as Covid, and a general worsening political and terrestrial climate all made for gloomier days inside and outside the workplace. And therefore, at the end of January, I closed my work-issued laptop, and opened a myriad of doors to new projects and adventures - among them, this blog.
Why the rooted cosmopolitan?
I grew up moving continent, country, and school, never spending more than 3 years at any educational institution, or 6 in a house. This lack of spatial boundaries has afforded me some wonderful and some difficult experiences. This background has made me open-minded, curious, and adaptable, but also restless and fickle.
Enter the ‘journey of self discovery’ so many of us are undertaking in our 20s. In this process I have searched for enlightenment through books, blogs, and videos about topics such as the ‘third culture kid’, the Latino diaspora, and immigrant experiences (which I’m happy to share if helpful to anyone else!). These have helped me find the language to express what I found myself feeling - at once a global and a local citizen.
Through this search I found the idea of the ‘rooted cosmopolitan’. Kwame Appiah coined this term to describe someone who ‘understands the value of community’, and recognises the ‘the globe as one of the communities to which [she] belongs’. In his view, a global conscience does not prohibit a deep sense of place and commitment to one’s surroundings, in contrast a so-called ‘rootless cosmopolitan’, a term which was used to degrade citizens with a perceived lack of national allegiance.
What I hope to do in this blog
As I choose to step off of the aforementioned achievement escalator and into something new, I hope to use this blog to document the variety of my experiences. This may range from the practical (such as travel tips) to the philosophical (as much as my own personal reflections can be), but all with the intention of reflecting my experience on this journey.
This story starts with a chapter in my ‘hometown’ of Rio de Janeiro. I hope you stick around to share in this journey! Next week I will be reflecting on the experience of ‘re-entry’ into my birth country, and sharing more about my favourite city on Earth.