The art of taking a break from things
and not feeling guilty about it
Hi! This is Leyla from A Day Well Spent, a newsletter seeking pathways to more purposeful living.
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The extended break
Towards the end of last year and well into the start of this one, I spent almost two months in South America. I was away for just over seven weeks in total, from mid December until the start of February.
Two of those weeks was a holiday in the traditional sense in that I was not working, I was travelling to different places and I was having new and exciting experiences (in the Amazon jungle and up Machu Picchu, no less — it was special).
But for the rest of that time, I was just – taking a break from my usual London life.
I was still working (albeit less than usual because of Christmas and New Year), still exercising, still cooking meals in our Buenos Aires AirBnB. Many things were business as usual.
But just being somewhere else meant I was enforcing a break from so much of my ordinary, day-to-day. For example, from the dreary grey UK winter, from household chores (not my house, much less bothered by mess), from my usual surroundings, my usual food, even from emails.
The out of office I set on 10th December read: