Letter to the Editor: Change Your Thought Patterns

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Reader O writes:

I recently found myself in the position of being let go from my job, but with the fortunate benefit of a couple of months of gardening leave.

One of the first things I did was to re-read Escape Everything! for some inspiration. Being a father of a small child, I don’t have the option to “fly somewhere vibrant and cheap,” which did sound like a wonderful plan.

I would very much like to capture the essence of that plan nonetheless and start thinking about building a cottage industry. Do you have any thoughts on how to capture the essence of flying somewhere vibrant and cheap, while remaining at home?

My interpretation of the travel part of the escape plan is that it’s intended to recharge one’s batteries while also disrupting the status quo to change your thought patterns and give rise to new ideas.

Do you have any thoughts on how to achieve this when confined to the same everyday life, but with nine hours of free time on my hands?

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Your situation sounds pretty good. A period of paid leave and, hopefully, some cash in the bank for an escape fund make for a strong hand. You have what most people do not have: time.

For the cottage industry element of your plan, you’ll need to have a think about your creative interests and look to how other people tend to monetise similar. Also, how you can be different to them — what your contribution to the world might be — and where your audience are.

You can’t travel for the mini-retirement I suggest in the book, so you’re asking absolutely the right question: how can you distil the benefits of such a trip into everyday life? You’ve also identified precisely what those benefits are: a recharge, a disruption, new thought patterns.

Escaping to a different city for a while, especially the “vibrant and cheap” sort of place I mention in the book allows you to cut some new pathways in the brain and some new passages through the air. Maybe reading some new books markedly different to the ones you’d normally read could help. The trouble is, being in, say, Valletta for the first times means that such novelty is ambient where books require your concentration.

I’d say the most important thing is not to waste your time off. I don’t mean you need to be productive and start your cottage industry: I mean that your recharge at least should be deep. Don’t watch daytime television: it saps the soul. Don’t spend your precious time on social media. Play with your children, read books, cook, dawdle, go for leisurely walks, experience nature, hear the sound of a river. Allow opportunities for disruption take you by surprise. Maybe you can take your children somewhere, just another town in your country, for a few days? When was the last time you went to the zoo?

Good luck with it all. And please do send us another Letter to the Editor or even an article when you have a story to tell.