What did you do to fill your time in that 2 1/2 years? Did you get bored or find yourself wanting to return to productivity?

Some of that time I was bored. Really bored. I think that was a good thing and it helped me think deeply about a lot of things.

I mostly filled the time with traveling the world. I made it to all 7 continents, so I put that time to good use.

When COVID hit, that was too much. I was losing my mind from nothing to do. I started coding again, built an art website and newsletter.

Then I started studying and landed a job 6 months ago.

> I mostly filled the time with traveling the world. I made it to all 7 continents, so I put that time to good use.

That sounds pretty cool! What were some of the highlights or places you enjoyed?

What's the art website?

I got a few "Won't you get bored" or "I'd get bored" comments before I started my career break. I honestly don't understand it. I like software engineering (despite burning out), but there are so many other things in the world. I'm a year into my career break and I still don't get the "boredom" comments.

I've always been mystified by those sorts of comments as well. But perhaps I'm just fortunate. I have enough things that I want to do that I could easily fill a decade with them.

Count me in. It's baffling to me, I don't think I'd ever run out of interesting, fulfilling things to fill my free time with. Quite the opposite.