On Three Months of Not in Education, Employment or Training

It has been three months since I left eBay and became a NEET for the first time in my life. I have not travelled or tried to become a teacher. I am still getting up at just after half past six and keeping up a routine by punctuating my day with morning coffee and regular meals. It is as if I am working from home for a very relaxed employer.

My typical day looks like this:

1. Get up
2. Run or weight training
3. Breakfast
4. Wash and dress
5. Chores/DIY
6. Coffee
7. Project
8. Lunch
9. Project/DIY
10. Prep and cook dinner
11. Dinner
12. Read
13. Bed

It is an enjoyable life for a couple of reasons. First, I have time to focus on me. I look forward to the morning exercise every day like a dog to its walk because it is something that is good for me and that I do purely for myself. The project I am working on during the day is also in that category: something from my tech experience that I am honing and shaping into a “product” because I now have the time for it.

The other reason is to be able to focus on domestic life. The home is where I create the most value now: repainting, polishing, planting, cooking. Feeding my husband gives me so much pleasure I wouldn’t be surprised if I was an Italian nonna of 20 grandchildren in a previous life. Certainly I am a homebody: spending more time to make our home as comfortable and pleasant as I can, like redrawing and replanting the front garden, gives me both purpose and fulfilment.

But this life is not all roses either. I have had strong feelings of guilt and anxiety about different things over the months. Not seeing my monthly salary arrive into the joint account was a visceral consequence of my choice. I was not pulling my weight in maintaining our life financially. What did my husband really think about that? Did he resent my decision and me? Even thinking about it entirely rationally to reach the conclusion that we can afford the loss of my income was no comfort. Rather, it was a cause for embarrassment: alright for some to be fortunate enough to float through an alphabet soup of good life, from Xennial Yuppie to FIRE. Then, did I quit because I couldn’t hack it? Am I not as capable as I thought? By quitting and having this career gap, am I dooming myself to unemployability were I to change my mind in the future? What value can I really create with my meagre, hobbyist project?

A few weeks ago, a former colleague hiring for his team contacted me. I was tempted enough, by the prospect of recovering my monthly salary deposits and meaningful career progression, to try for the role. Almost immediately, I realised I was terrible at interviews and had serious reservations about the product itself. So nothing came of it but I was not deterred by my blunder; I started to scan LinkedIn jobs compulsively and applied for more roles. One of them would have been a dream job, principal product manager role at The Economist, whose weekly editions I listen to religiously. Knowing my experience was not the perfect fit, I bared my soul in my cover letter to seduce them. I described a pleasure very personal and important to me: the total silence after The Economist’s Obituary, the last segment of the week’s print and audio editions. It is a poignant silence that solemnises the life of the dead and marks another week of my life. So, unfairly, I took the boilerplate thanks-but-no-thanks, no-interview decision very personally. I felt I cheapened something I cherished by using it for advantage. And it didn’t work!

For the moment, as I write these three-month reflections, my mind has swung in the other direction. I tell myself that I should focus on my project, which will be the topic of another essay in the near future. But either way, the underlying anxiety seems to be the same: what value can I create for the world outside my domestic sphere? My husband was and still is worried that I would be at a loss without a job. I resisted that view by reading it literally and harrumphed, "I am not at a loss." But he is right to anticipate a need in me to search for another occupation that I regard as meaningful, beyond looking after myself and him. This enjoyable life of domesticity is not quite enough to be my only seat in the world.

Is it because I have been conditioned by the modern economy that descends from Victorian England ethics of ceaseless betterment? I might be better off unshackling my mind, accepting my good fortune of not having to work, and resting easy on the domestic goddess altar. Perhaps. As far as backups go, I could do worse. But this anxiety or drive to make something remarkable in the world is older than three months. I already felt my potential was unfulfilled while working at eBay. More likely, quitting was me subconsciously forcing myself into doing something about it. And I do prefer building something concrete that has an impact on others, even if that preference is largely born out of a social construct.

But if I am honest, I do feel a little lost and directionless. Because now I am free to fulfil my potential and to act on the ideas and schemes that pop into my head: the project is mine entirely, and only moves forward when I do. But where, when, and how? I have to answer all these questions. It is a lonely and almost menacing freedom. I hope I will have made more of it in another three months.