I left my job in April 2025, and it’s been around six to seven months that I’ve been a free bird! This is not the first time I’ve taken a career break, but it is the first time I have no goal, no next steps, no future plans.

Have you ever had a time when you weren’t looking ahead into the future and were just living in the present? When your mind is calm, your health is good, and you suddenly have so much time in your hands to figure out who you are? I feel like since eighth or ninth standard, my life has been pretty hectic. Not always physically busy, but mentally busy - always thinking about what’s next.

In school, my goal was to get really good marks and get into a good college - ✅
After college, getting a good internship - ✅
After the internship, getting a job offer - ✅
After getting a job: learning new things, building good professional relationships, growing in my career, earning the paycheck I deserve - all ✅

I took a professional break in between - but even that had goals: doing hikes, solo travel, figuring out if travel blogging could be a career - ✅ (and I realised no one pays like IT jobs for the amount of effort we put in).

After building a decent career and getting a decent salary, it was time to focus more on personal relationships: finding a companion, learning to share life with someone, travelling with your partner, and so on - ✅

Now what? Generally, people plan for a family and continue that journey - but that’s not for me. That’s not who I am.

I’ve had great teams, worked with some of the best colleagues, and proved myself good enough in my profession. But is it enough? Is anything ever enough?

I decided to leave my high-paying remote job because it was getting too toxic and was starting to impact my health. When I left, I had no idea what I would be doing. To be honest, I thought I would get bored without work - but to my surprise, I didn’t!

This is the first time I’ve had so much free time without looking for the next big thing. I have no obligations and no responsibilities to fulfil (mostly towards myself). I’m financially stable enough to have the freedom to do nothing. I’m exploring myself. I’m trying to remember who I was in school, what changed in me, what experiences shaped me, and why. I’m finally trying to process some emotions and situations I might have buried years ago while pretending I had “moved on.” It’s surprising how, when you’re alone with nothing to do, so many layers of your subconscious open up-and you have no option but to deal with them.

I realise I don’t have to “prove” anything to be who I am or to be respected for who I am. It’s really difficult to separate your identity from your profession, but I’m trying. There’s so much ego in all of us that restricts us from letting go of our identities, because for years those identities have fed that ego and shaped who we are.

I’m a great multitasker, but that also means it’s very hard to be truly present while doing just one thing, because in my mind I’m doing multiple things at once. It’s super hard to slow down and do one thing at a time, think one thing at a time, or even more difficult - do nothing! 😛

In this era, it’s so hard to sit quietly and do nothing. Our brains are so overstimulated. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media apps have messed with our attention span. It’s almost impossible to sit idle. My mind constantly craves something to occupy it. It’s difficult to watch a YouTube video at 1× speed even though I have all the free time in the world. It’s difficult to read a book for hours without checking my phone. And it’s extremely difficult to just sit without a phone or book, and simply look at nature and do nothing. I’m still trying to achieve that - but damn, it’s hard.

All this tech has made us so dependent. If someone gave me a small house and asked me to live there without any devices, life might feel hard at first, even though there would be so much beauty all around.

Now all I want is to have a calm mind, surround myself with nature, and just live each moment without thinking about what’s next. I’m sure that even with baby steps, I’ll get there.