Fortysomethings and late Gap Years

While at one time people in their fifth decade seemed quite happy to go down the well-tended primrose path to peaceful oblivion, today’s more assertive generation isn’t going anywhere gently. After twenty-odd years in the workplace and the pressures of bringing up a family, you suddenly realise that you too want a Life Changing Adventure and to collapse on some sand in Thailand thinking you’re Leonardo di Caprio in The Beach.

Inevitably it will take a fair amount of time, at your age, to convince your corporate employer that ‘time out’ will be a ‘good thing’. After all, you’ll need to justify them not paying you for six months and offering your colleagues the pick of your job roles, not forgetting how you’ll be ‘adding value’ to the company and bringing back a whole range of exciting new skills.

Skills you can claim to be bringing back:

Strategic (I’ll have a much better overview of the universe and the place of four-hour petty cash meetings in it).
Leadership (I’ll actually have made my own decisions for once without another middle-aged doppelganger telling me what to do).
Empathy (I can sense that everybody thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown, but then what’s new – at least I’ll have a decent tan).
Creative (If I haven’t thought of an imaginative way to escape this place by the time I get back, I will have failed).

What not to say to corporate employers:

I want to swim with sharks because they’ll be less lethal than you.
I want to scream into the Samaria Gorge that you’re a bunch of f***** shits.
I want to talk to a monkey because they’ll be more stimulating than you.
I want to attend a voodoo ceremony and make sure I don’t miss out any of your names.

It’s only now you wonder what exactly you’re letting yourself in for. You are in your forties after all, and old enough to be the parent of other younger Gap Yearers. It is worth remembering, however, that in many developing countries you will be felt to be in the upper echelons age-wise and would normally either be an old age pensioner or else dead. Locals will either honour you as an elder as befits your advanced age or try to understand your reasons for travelling across half the world in order to sit on a plastic carrier bag in a tent and eat Snack Pots and tell people about your mild existential crisis as a result of your horrible line manager or how Xmas 2005 with your Surrey relatives brought things to a head. It may be best to say you only wanted a break – just try not to worry whether someone’s stolen your hole-punch back in the office or if you’re going to end up with the wobbly chair when you finally return.