馃攳
watch this BEFORE you QUIT YOUR JOB to take a "break" 馃洃馃槼 - YouTube
Channel: Evelyn From The Internets
[0]
Is he distracting you?
If he's distracting you,
[6]
my eyes are here. Okay.
I'm coming to you eyelinerless.
[9]
Coming to to you in a robe,
coming to you with congestion.
[12]
We're going old school. You
know what I'm saying? Handheld.
[14]
I'm getting over a cold. I don't want
to mess with the riff raff. Anyway,
[19]
let's have a chit chat. Hey
YouTube world it's me, Evelyn,
[22]
to understand what I'll be talking
about and I'm looking at my notes to
[25]
understand what I'll be talking
about a little bit better.
[27]
Go ahead and watch two videos
that I made a while ago.
[32]
Watch the first video, which was called,
I quit my job to be a funemployed
[37]
creative. Um,
[39]
and then the second video is how I saved
$20,000 to quit my full time job and be
[46]
funemployed. All right. And
if you hear the err err
[50]
it's not a Tik Tok sensation.
It's um, my office chair.
[55]
Those two videos will help this
video make a lot more sense.
[59]
So essentially I worked
a corporate job, quit it,
[63]
took a year off air quotes and in 2019
I started working again this time for
[71]
myself as a freelancer and in this video
I want to run through the mistakes I
[76]
made during that year long
sabbatical, time off,
[81]
gap year, funemployment and the
things that I learned during that time off.
[86]
So that you are better
equipped with the full, you know,
[91]
knowledge of my experience so that you
can make better decisions or decisions
[96]
that are right for you in your life should
you choose to take some serious time
[101]
off.
[105]
I grossly underestimated the power
of shame and I'm a call it
[113]
Capitalism induced shame.
It's a powerful thing.
[118]
Think about it this way. I quit
my job on purpose. I wasn't fired,
[123]
I didn't lose my job.
[125]
The circumstances were not unfortunate
in the slightest and I still felt
[132]
ashamed. I felt like people
would think I was lazy.
[135]
I mean I already had some insecurities
around people not thinking my job is real
[141]
to begin with. And even though
I worked a corporate job,
[144]
it was still on the internet.
[145]
So not feeling like I'm contributing
to society or feeling selfish because I
[153]
should be getting this money, this
bread, this cheese, this cake,
[157]
whatever food group we
use that in the event
[160]
if something happened to my family,
[163]
I don't have extra money
to help. I have time.
[166]
I now can give you my time.
[168]
That shame of not being a productive
member of society in a way that someone
[174]
else would value, got to me
so much that I ended up working.
[179]
I paid taxes.
[180]
I worked during that time off and I referenced that in my older video.
[187]
Because I noticed a lot of you from the comments
thought that funemployed was synonymous
[192]
with being a hashtag influencer,
[195]
an entrepreneur being self employed,
which ended up happening, uh,
[200]
because I don't know how to not work,
[202]
but that was never the intention.
[205]
And I realized how ingrained it is in us having
[208]
a job. Making money is valuable. Like you,
[213]
that's what makes you valuable.
We learned it from a young age.
[216]
You don't pay bills in this
house so you can't decide duh, duh,
[219]
duh duh duh when you pay bills is when
you can tell me what to do. Dah, dah,
[222]
dah, dah. And sure enough, we
can't wait to get that first job.
[225]
So can't nobody tell us what to do. So
when you don't have that, uh, employment,
[230]
even when you the one who,
[233]
even when it's not a tragedy,
[235]
you still feel kind of embarrassed and
ashamed to not be part of the world.
[242]
What? I spent a lot of time worrying
and time spent worrying is not resting.
[250]
If you're doing nothing but thinking
about how you're doing nothing,
[257]
then you're doing something. So
[259]
My arm's tired.
[261]
there's this Alice Walker and listen
this this is a meme, I gotta fact check it.
[265]
Because y'all be quoting everybody incorrectly and it's some quote that's like
[270]
you don't have to be
doing, you can just be.
[273]
And it was during that time off where I
was like, I don't know how to just be.
[278]
Get this.
[280]
I had saved enough money to take time
off yet I was worried about not making
[290]
money during my time off. Absurd.
[295]
What is that? What is that?
[302]
Number two. Way too long.
A year was way too long.
[308]
A span of time, especially
because I was here,
[311]
I was in the city that I live
in watching the world go by.
[317]
If I had taken a year
break and gone somewhere,
[322]
if I had went back to the motherland
and helped aunty till the land,
[326]
I can help her till the land.
I can grow cabbage.
[330]
I don't know if I left for
a year and then came back,
[334]
that would be different, but
spending a year here at the house,
[338]
you know what I'm saying? Too long.
[339]
I would recommend if I were to do it all
over again, three months, three to six,
[344]
six, six maybe,
[346]
but three months would
be an amazing time off.
[351]
I did take a screenwriting class
both online and in real life,
[356]
like I went to a physical location
with classmates an instructor,
[361]
yada yada, the whole nine.
[362]
I did that and I do recommend
that if you take time off,
[366]
especially if you live alone,
[367]
that you have a class or something to
where someone's keeping track of your
[372]
whereabouts in a good way so that you
don't just fall off the earth and don't
[376]
nobody know where you was at,
[377]
some sort of structure to
see other human beings.
[382]
You got to see other human beings and
I really thought I was doing something.
[385]
I was like, I might as well, take a year off.
[389]
Mmm mm I was rolling in the deep
most of the time as per my first point,
[394]
worrying, wondering what am I doing
with my time? Am I wasting time?
[399]
The irony that I had saved money to
give myself time and I spent it worrying
[406]
about not having enough or
wasting it. What is that?
[415]
The next lesson I learned,
[417]
I was way too ambitious with what
I wanted to do with this time.
[420]
I had so many things I wanted to do and
things I wanted to accomplish and that
[426]
was my mistake.
[427]
Taking time off doesn't necessarily mean
it's time to accomplish more things,
[432]
so I did lots of things halfway.
[433]
I kind of ping ponged
around life for a year.
[437]
When I tell you I don't know what I did
in 2018 like I did my year review,
[447]
like I can watch that video and see
like what I did and where I went,
[451]
but it didn't feel like how I thought
it would feel. I'm going to read,
[456]
it's in my notes app on my
phone and on my computer.
[458]
There's a note in here and it's dated May
7th, 2017 months before I quit my job.
[466]
It's titled if I took a sabbatical,
[468]
I'm going to read all the things
that I said I wanted to do.
[471]
Visit Kenya to do a workshop,
[474]
collaborate with YouTubers there
South by Southwest speaking gigs,
[479]
interviews in a show series.
This sounds like work,
[483]
but then I also have
learn how to grow food.
[487]
East African food truck. Become a
better, people's events.
[491]
I don't want to be a
cinematographer. I did that to be honest.
[495]
Learn about space.
[496]
Go to visit family,
illustrate, make a family history book.
[500]
Children books. What are you
talking about? This is a lot y'all.
[504]
That's what I wanted to do with
my sabbatical, with my time off.
[509]
It's too much.
[514]
Another big problem or
mistake that I made,
[518]
I used terms interchangeably
and incorrectly.
[524]
Okay. So the definition of a sabbatical,
[528]
taking time off from your full
time job to work on something else.
[535]
I wanted to take time off to also rest,
[540]
which is not the same, funemployed
funemployment as a play on the words.
[545]
Fun and unemployment.
[547]
A lot of y'all thought fun
employment meant being self employed.
[550]
There's nothing particularly
fun about. It has its moments,
[554]
but what it meant was being
unemployed on purpose,
[558]
fun or a gap year. I would
use the word gap year.
[561]
I was using those phrases and concepts
kind of interchangeably and they're not
[565]
the same.
[566]
And I think when you take time off to
help you fight against that very strong,
[573]
um, capitalism induced shame,
[577]
you need to be very clear about what
this time represents and what it is and
[583]
what it isn't. This my next
one, and this is calling me out.
[588]
Okay. And I want you to remember
this whenever you're on social media.
[596]
Performing rest and resting are not the same thing,
[603]
y'all ever watched those um,
[605]
morning routine videos where
they're in bed and it's like
[609]
but the camera's rolling
so they're not asleep.
[611]
That's what I mean by performing
rest. Whether it's an Instagram photo,
[615]
a YouTube video or anything
performing rest, I'm a say it again.
[619]
Performing rest is not the same
[624]
as resting.
[625]
You want to know what you'll
hear from me when I'm resting?
[631]
Crickets. You won't. You won't see me.
[636]
You won't hear from me.
[637]
All the things I did in my fun employed
video I actually did in real life.
[644]
But creating a video
is technically working,
[648]
showing you that I'm taking
this time off to like cook more
[654]
is still showing you it.
Does that make sense?
[658]
Am I making sense? And this
leads me to another point.
[662]
Work is work even when it's
cool. Now to be clear.
[667]
Not all work is equal. I don't
believe all work is equal.
[672]
There is work that is looked
down upon in our society.
[675]
There is work that is
praised in our society.
[677]
There is work that is manual
back-breaking physically taxing.
[681]
There is work that is not physically taxing.
[687]
You know what I'm saying? You're
not mining coal. But on Facebook.
[690]
When you mark something as spam or when
you mark something as inappropriate,
[693]
a human being watches that crap
has to watch like a dog get shot.
[699]
You know what I'm saying? So
that's mentally taxing work,
[702]
work that has implications that
we won't know until the future.
[706]
Hello internet. So all work isn't equal,
[710]
but all work is work. Even when it's cool,
[715]
it is not resting. That's
the thing that I learned.
[719]
Um,
[720]
I don't regret the year I
spent off because I learned
a lot about myself and you
[727]
know, lessons that I shared with you.
[730]
But I wanted to make this video to
share some of my thoughts and to,
[733]
and to say that taking time off wasn't
as picture perfect as I made it seem in
[741]
previous videos.
[742]
Ain't that about a blip, that
you can earn in earnest.
[747]
You know what I'm saying? Legitly.
you know - what Da Baby say?
[751]
I made me a Millie. I did it "legitly".
[754]
I saved my money legitimately and
I still felt bad. That's a rip off.
[759]
That's a rip off. So yeah, I took
screenwriting classes, go me,
[763]
but I also spent time thinking about what
it looks like to go all in on a dream
[769]
versus growing a YouTube channel.
[771]
Go all in on a YouTube channel
versus doing something else.
[775]
The amount of times I have
wanted to apply to a job,
[779]
just like be a cute girl who works in
like a ceramic shop and sell $75 salad
[785]
bowls. Um, I can do that. I can do it.
[790]
That gives me structure. All
right, clock in, clock out.
[793]
I ain't got to bring work home.
[795]
No one's going to be asking me did
you vlog this? Did you go there?
[799]
How come you didn't do a meetup here?
[800]
They just want to know how much does
this bowl cost ma'am? And I'll tell you,
[804]
that's $75 and I can,
[806]
I also have a larger one for $105 you
would probably like that one better,
[811]
ma'am. So all that being had said,
this is what I recommend you do.
[817]
If you want to take a
break or some time off,
[820]
write down the reason you
want to take a break. Okay?
[824]
Because I'm exhausted versus I don't
have time to write my book idea are two
[830]
very different breaks. If you're
just tired, if you need to hit a nap,
[834]
a three month long nap on,
some Rumpelstiltskin,
[838]
Rip Van Winkle come through wishbone.
[842]
Taking a break because you're tired
is very different than taking a break
[846]
so you have a buffer time before you
turn your side hustle into your fulltime
[850]
job.
[851]
I want you to prepare for
every conceivable cause
[858]
there are just things that you just
don't know are going to happen.
[861]
I want you to prepare for every
obstacle. Um, and when I say obstacle,
[865]
I mean like, uh, social interactions.
I want you to be like, okay,
[868]
so if I take this time off, my momma
gonna say X, Y, Z. And when she say X,Y,Z,
[873]
I'm going to say A, B, C, D, E.
[874]
if you've got a friend who sees that
you're not doing nothing and takes that
[878]
time to, to,
[881]
to kind of guilt you into doing
certain things, prepare. Finally,
[885]
I really recommend that you
journal your whole experience.
[888]
You journal now from the time you're
deciding to maybe take some time off you
[893]
journal your process, your
thoughts. I journaled a lot about, um,
[898]
feeling inadequate feeling. Um, like,
[902]
and social media has
a lot to do with this.
[904]
That's you're only as good as
the last thing you published.
[907]
If I can't publish what
I want in my mind's eye,
[914]
then I'm not going to nothing.
That's perfectionism sis, okay,
[918]
it's not realistic. Divesting
[922]
from day to day work kind of
flings you into another realm.
[927]
You will reevaluate your entire
reason for being. It's weird.
[931]
So now that I have grappled
with my place in capitalism, um,
[936]
a word from our sponsor, shout out to
Audible for sponsoring today's video.
[939]
Audible has the largest selection
of audio books. They also have, uh,
[944]
fitness programs, guided
meditations, podcasts, news,
[948]
and they also have Audible originals,
[949]
which are exclusive titles created by
storytellers in a variety of genres,
[954]
including theater,
journalism, and literature.
[957]
Get your first audio book plus two
Audible originals for free with a 30 day
[961]
trial membership.
[962]
Visit audible.com/evelyn or text Evelyn
to 500 500 I plan on getting into
[968]
my year of rest and relaxation.
[970]
I got this recommendation from
my girl Ariel here on YouTube.
[973]
Check out her channel if you're into
book tube and book reviews and the sort,
[980]
the title might sound cute,
[983]
but essentially the main character goes
into like a drug induced hibernation
[989]
because she's done with the world.
[991]
You can choose my suggestion or you can
choose whichever audio book and audible
[995]
originals you want.
[996]
They're yours to keep even when
your trial membership is over.
[999]
So to get started on your
free 30 day trial membership,
[1002]
Visit audible.com/evelyn or text
Evelyn to 500 500. In the comments below
[1010]
Let me know if anything I said made sense,
[1014]
if it resonated with you. If you have
any more questions for me, let me know.
[1018]
So yeah, thanks for watching and I will
see you on the internet somewhere. Bye.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage