https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/ Recent content in Sabbatical Notes on Billy's Thoughts Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 01 Mar 2026 23:00:00 -0800 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/12/ Sun, 01 Mar 2026 23:00:00 -0800 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/12/ If you want to comment on this post, you can do so on my x-post on substack. The musical opens with this light plucking and twinkling that immediately brings me back to late-2000s Ingrid Michaelson with her ukulele and her vocal harmonies. (She wrote all of the music for this musical, and it’s so clearly her, at least to me. Every time a song plays and I hear her in the opening measures, a part of me waves excitedly to her. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/appendix/ Sun, 05 Oct 2025 15:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/appendix/ A snapshot memento of what I had on my Now Page while I was on sabbatical, from Jun 2023 to Aug 2025. What I’m doing now On sabbatical In June 2023 I left my job of 7 years in software engineering, and went on a sabbatical. After 6 months, I realized that the main thing I want to focus on is: rewiring myself away from grasping for external validation of my work as a necessary component of my worth, and cultivating an internal wellspring of self-worth and self-love. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/11/ Sun, 05 Oct 2025 14:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/11/ After two years, my sabbatical has come to an end; I’ve started a Clinical Psychology grad program to become a therapist. The timeline since my last sabbatical post looks something like this: Nov 2024 Got the itch to do something work/career-related again. Pondered the idea of Good Work. Dec 2024 Decided to apply to “therapist school” - Counseling Psychology (MA) and Clinical Psychology (PsyD) programs. I thought, “F*ck it, I’ll apply. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/10/ Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/10/ So… I’m in grad school! I’m doing a PsyD program to become a licensed therapist. (I’ve been jokingly calling it “therapist school”.) I’m in the swing of things now, and it’s great. There’s no place I’d rather be. But getting here was a bit tumultuous, and I was riddled with indecision in Jan-Feb 2025, which is what I want to document here. Context I’d been floating the idea of going to “therapist school” since ~2024. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/9/ Thu, 07 Nov 2024 23:00:00 -0800 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/9/ This past May, I started feeling like I’d been doing Fun Projects for long enough. Since July 2023 I’d been fighting (with love) my urge/anxiety around needing to feel productive, make money, and get back to self-sufficiency, by reconnecting to my sense of Fun and doing Fun Projects.1 But after ~10 months of this, I was feeling a bit hedonistic, and I was suddenly motivated again to work on my career. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/8/ Thu, 18 Jul 2024 17:00:00 -0400 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/8/ It’s been just over one year now since I went on sabbatical, and I wanted to write some sort of “Year One” update post. But what I didn’t want to happen was for me to get stuck making something Serious or Formal in order to Properly celebrate the milestone. So here I am, writing something quick and loose so I can just get something out into the world. A quick summary of my one year on sabbatical: https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/7/ Wed, 12 Jun 2024 15:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/7/ Up until a month ago, I would explain what I was doing on sabbatical by telling people something like “Well, I’m going to the gym, and then besides that I’m mostly doing fun creative projects like writing, drawing, and playing the drums.” Because that’s what I did. For the past few months, from Feb thru May, all I focused on was getting into a rhythm again of Doing Stuff that I enjoy. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/6/ Sun, 26 May 2024 20:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/6/ Writing my previous blog post took a lot out of me, to the point where I started looking forward to being done with the post halfway through the writing process. I’m glad I wrote it, but I’m also glad it’s over with. After publishing the post, I took a week off from writing. I still drew portrait studies and practiced the drums, but I filled the extra time with books, video games, and… just pondering what else to do. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/5/ Fri, 12 Jan 2024 23:59:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/5/ Covers Nov 2023 to Jan 2024. After the dust settled in October, my experiences and my new mindset coalesced into these two goals: Continue to do the creative work that I love, and do whatever I need to in order to sustain this; while in the background: Rewire myself away from grasping for external validation of my work as a necessary component of my worth, and toward cultivating an internal wellspring of self-worth https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/recap1/ Fri, 10 Nov 2023 13:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/recap1/ I’ve been on sabbatical since July now. And up until October, something new would shift for me literally every two weeks. This post is intended to be a record of all of those changes, so I don’t forget this crazy, wonderful time. The timeline How it started July Week 1-2 - Objective #1 - Find a more fulfilling way to work Getting another perspective - Give Your Gift Week 3-4 - Objective #2 - Reconnect with Fun August Week 1-2 - Objective #3 - Meander The neutral zone Week 3-4 - A door appears September Week 1-2 - Descend Week 3-4 - Emerge October Objective #4 - Keep doing creative work How it started ↩︎ https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/4/ Mon, 30 Oct 2023 19:30:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/4/ I’ve been chipping away at a big post to map out how my thinking has changed since the start of my sabbatical in July (edit: out now!). But I’ve also been getting antsy about not having published anything in over a month. So here’s an update for October! Do The Thing “Do The Thing” “Do 100 Reps” “Just Do It” This idea has been like a scalpel for me, continuing to cut through my bullshit. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/3/ Fri, 18 Aug 2023 13:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/3/ While updating my Now Page, I got to thinking about how I would describe what I’d like to accomplish on my sabbatical. I wanted a clear-cut answer to a question I’d been asking myself for the past two months now: “What am I doing? Where is this going?” Here’s the excerpt I came up with: I’d love to eventually carve out a way of living and working that’s more satisfying for me than my prior experience with the typical corporate path. https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/2-fun/ Wed, 19 Jul 2023 16:30:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/2-fun/ “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” - Mike Tyson, modified Planning is everything, but plans mean nothing. And oh boy did my initial plans go out the window quickly. The top projects I’d planned to work on were: coaching setup stuff, writing blog posts, and writing fiction. But when I started to actually spend time on these things, I found myself feeling kinda miserable. What the heck? https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/1-doing/ Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:00:00 -0700 https://billy.dev/posts/sabbatical-notes/1-doing/ Doing the thing I’m officially on sabbatical! I started my leave from work on June 5, but I immediately went on a 2-week vacation to Tokyo. Now I’m settled back in, and getting to work. And so, in July 2023, it really begins. I’ve written previously about what I’d like to accomplish during my little incubator: in short, writing a lot and starting up some form of tech career coaching. But two weeks in and I already feel a bit unmoored.