The Mid-Life Gap Year

Back in 1965 Canadian academic and author Eliott Jaques coined the phrase the mid-life crisis to describe the itch that people between the ages of 45 and 65 were most likely to experience – a desire to look at doing something new while questioning the work or career they had been leading.

More than a half century later, and it took a pandemic complete with lockdowns and disruption to trigger it, we’re talking about a new version of this mid-life course correction. This one, though, is slightly different.

It’s not about abandoning a career or life choice altogether, it’s about a mega-sabbatical.

Many of us found new ways of doing things through the COVID crisis, like WFH or Working From Home. We learned that there is indeed an alternative to commuting to an office and working shoulder-to-shoulder with our colleagues.

This change has sparked a desire among mid-career workers to think about taking a year off – a Mid-Life Gap Year – similar to taking the year between high school and university to do something different like travelling or living in a monastery.