Gaurav Mishra is giving away everything he owns

Wow.

It took me over an year to “give up” my job. Around August 2006, I started thinking that I should quit my job and take some time off. It took until August 2007 to crystallize the vague thoughts that I had in my mind. And it took until December 2007 to actually quit.

As you can see from the timelines, it is not easy to break free of the structure of the default life that we impose upon ourselves, based on what we see around us. Note that, in my case, it wasn’t finance that was holding me back. It was just needing to convince myself to get out of my comfort zone.

Now, six months later, I am convinced that it was a great decision. In fact, I think everyone should do something like this at some time during their career. Especially if your career is having a mid-life crisis. If you’ve been at a regular job for 5 to 10 years, and you can afford (financially) to take about 6 months (or more) off, I highly recommend that you do this. All the non-financial reasons that you are trotting out for not doing so are just rationalizations. Convince me otherwise, I’m ready to debate you 🙂

But frankly, what I did was not all that revolutionary. Lots of people quit their jobs to try something different. Gaurav Mishra is taking the next, really revolutionary step:

I have already decided to give away the job (for ten months at least), and my lovely house goes with it. Now, I am giving away everything else I have, to one lucky person. Yes, you read it right, I’m giving away everything I have, to one lucky person.

He clearly lays out some compelling reasons for why this make sense. Read the details, and comments of readers over at his blog.

For the record, no, I do not feel envious of Gaurav, I have no intentions of giving away my belongings. But I do admire the courage.

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