The 4 Truths That Convinced Me To Take A Micro-Retirement — And Why I Don’t Regret A Thing
Sometimes, walking away isn't quitting. It's choosing peace.
toxawww | Canva “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Taking time away from work is extremely uncomfortable. Three months ago, I stepped away from a lucrative career I had spent 15 years building to recover from burnout and reexamine my priorities. I am still unpacking complicated feelings about this move.
Unprompted, I find myself explaining to others all the things I am going to do during my career break, all the groundwork I am laying for future endeavors, as if resting and taking time to breathe is shameful. Isn’t it, though?
Throughout my life, American culture conditioned me to believe my progress in life should be linear: go to college, get a job, work hard, get married, have children, retire at 65, enjoy the fruit of my labor, die. Deviating from this plan to enjoy a slower pace in early or mid-life is seen as lazy or irresponsible, especially by folks from my parents’ generation.
But that’s bunk. Work culture is inherently more toxic today than it was when my parents were in the workforce. Over the last 15 years, I watched the nature of work deteriorate.
Before the ubiquity of smartphones, it was difficult for a manager to reach a worker outside of business hours. Today, it is standard for even entry-level roles to hold implicit expectations of constant availability, including during vacation and sick time.
Even if they never make contact outside of work hours, having your boss in your pocket around the clock is haunting and dystopian. I was not surprised to learn that over 80% of American workers under the age of 34 feel burned out by their job. People can complain about “lazy youngsters” all they want, but the data is clear. The modern workplace has become unbearable for most of us.
Gen-Z celebrates my break in work, calling it a “micro-retirement.” The Boomer generation warns that a career pause is reckless. Despite having complex feelings about my temporary departure from the paid workforce, there are four reasons I’m confident that quitting my job was the right choice for me.
Here are truths that convinced me to take a micro-retirement, and why I don’t regret a thing:
1. I won’t live forever
Last year, while attempting to “have it all,” I experienced a health scare that served as the beginning of the end of work as I knew it. It forced me to confront what I’d been pushing aside: the real cost of constantly striving to do more and be better was my life.
Beyond my own experience, two of my close friends were diagnosed with cancer in the last 5 years. Their experiences shook me to my core. Cancer is a disease for old people who didn’t take care of themselves, not for otherwise healthy parents of young children. Or, so I thought.
My friends are part of a terrifying trend in growing cancer diagnoses in young people, especially women. Knowing that my body may be a ticking time bomb has made working any more than I have to impossible. How can I continue to delay gratification when life is so fragile?
One friend is in recovery, and the other continues to fight. They are both always on my mind. Their journeys have grounded me and brought what truly matters into sharp focus.
I used to believe that there was pride in hard work, and to some extent, there is. But through recent experiences, I have come to realize that there is also pride in choosing balance, embracing stillness, and allowing space for rest. There’s wisdom in honoring my body’s signals and strength in recognizing that I am enough, exactly as I am.
2. I'm choosing to preserve what matters most
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During my tenure climbing the corporate ladder, I saw and heard stories of people, mostly men, who gave it all for their job. They got to the office at 4 AM, took calls from halfway around the world in the middle of the night, and hopped on a plane at a moment’s notice to address issues with important customers.
They joked about how their wives would someday tire of their devotion to work and divorce them. They routinely stepped away from family dinners or movie nights to address work crises, missed Little League games, birthdays, and college move-ins for their job.
These are the people I was idolizing? This was the life I was striving for? For what, a bigger salary that I would never have the time to enjoy? To provide a “better life” for the family that I never got to see?
Once I became a parent, I could no longer rationalize that grueling pace of work. My inability to balance parenthood and career saved me. It forced me to choose between two things I held dear. Fortunately, my family won out by a landslide.
3. I am not my job
Even once the signals were clear that I had reached a dead end in my career journey, my choice to quit was a difficult one. The lack of balance between my work and home life made me miserable.
Every day, plagued with guilt, I would watch updates about my daughter’s day trickle in via a daycare phone app. I longed to dial back work to enjoy more of this precious time with her, but fear of losing my identity to motherhood held me back.
I was hanging on to a job that was making me miserable to maintain my identity. And there it was. The reason I had such a hard time stepping away from my career was that I equated my job with my identity. But a woman losing herself to motherhood is no different than a man losing himself to his career. It’s the same problem in different packaging.
The root of the issue is creating self-worth from external sources instead of internal sources. Quitting my career put me at no greater risk of losing my identity than full-time parenting did.
I am no expert; I am in the infancy of my self-actualization journey. But I do know that the only way I will find fulfillment in life is from the inside out, not the other way around.
This realization has freed me from some of the fear that came with ending my career. All I left behind when I quit was the work, not a piece of myself.
4. I'm embracing the art of the rebound
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My father used to be my role model. He is the most intelligent, hard-working man I have ever met, and those traits enabled him to overcome extreme challenges in his life. However, as I’ve matured, I have realized he lacks one key trait that I possess, and it’s my favorite thing about myself. I am not afraid to be terrible at something.
My father will not even learn to play a new card game out of fear that he will lose. Conversely, throughout my life, I have had numerous starts and stops, especially in my career: I’ve been laid off, quit jobs, changed industries, and gone back to school.
The consistent stream failures and restarts have taken away my fear of looking foolish. As a lifelong learner, I know that I can always start again from scratch.
If my next path ends, I know I am capable of going back to the drawing board. I have reframed my failures as opportunities to better understand the Venn diagram of who I am, what I am good at, and what I enjoy.
If letting go of traditional career ambitions makes me appear lazy to older generations, I accept that. Since stepping off the relentless career treadmill, I have begun to see through the illusion of “having it all,” and I am letting go of the guilt and fear that kept me grinding past my breaking point.
I am done sitting at a desk, watching my child grow up on a daycare phone app in the name of feminism and maintaining my identity. I am done missing quality time with my husband for unfulfilling work. I am done sacrificing time with my family to chase meaningless promotions and raises a part of a contest.
I am done putting my mind and body under insurmountable stress so some Board member’s stock valuation can go up by a quarter of a point.
Is my ability to take a micro-retirement, at least in part, a result of my privilege? Absolutely. I would be remiss if I left that unsaid. However, the process of reflection and reprioritization is universal.
What areas of our lives get the most attention? Are they the ones we hold most precious? Next time I am asked about my plans during my micro-retirement, I will offer that I am redefining success on my terms and developing the courage to live in alignment with that definition.
Free of guilt. Free of shame. Free of fear.
Tiffany Judge is a writer and essayist whose contributions can be found on Medium and YourTango.com. After spending 15 years in the corporate world, she has recently turned her focus to writing. She is a lifelong learner and brings a sharp analytical eye and deep personal insight to her work.
