A career break at 27

So I thought I’d write a short post on what I’m doing currently in my life. I’ve just turned 27 and graduated from Warwick university with a mathematics degree five years ago. Since then, I have mostly been working in the data science space, mostly in the sports betting industry. However, I recently quit without a subsequent job lined up. This has then caused varying reactions from people, from “What are you going to do with your time?”, to “That’s such a brave thing to do and I really admire it!”, and finally just “Why?”. I thought I’d looked to address these questions here.

Quitting my job wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I knew that I didn’t see myself where I was for a long time to come. I was also very worried about waking up one day in ten years time and being disappointed with not doing what I wanted to be doing, and therefore unhappy — and happiness is ultimately the only thing that really matters.

Now what do I hope to get out of this career break? There are a few things that I am looking to get, and I think these can be summarised as the following:

• Find my Ikigai — find something that I love, I am good at, what the world needs and what I can be paid for.
• Learn/experience new things, and improve at others.
• Spend time with and helping the people that I love in my life.
• Ignite my forgotten passions.

I will look to touch on each of these points in more detail in future posts, as they are all (perhaps intentionally) rather vague.

Finally, do I recommend that you also do the same if you also are unhappy with where you currently are and are feeling unsatisfied? Well firstly, I do not think that I am a very materialistic individual nor do I splash myself in luxuries often, and therefore financially all I need to spend at the very minimum is enough for a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Also, I am in the very privileged position of having the following: savings so I am able to not need to work for a while, a highly sought after technical skill and no dependants apart from myself. If you are lucky to also be in the same position, then my advice would be… ask me in a few months time.