How Far We Have Come: Shared Lessons from a Sabbatical Year

Thirteen days until we are home. The days are racing by. 

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. We celebrated with sticky rice balls and homemade sushi, hiking in the pouring rain, and family movie time. Our oldest daughter made him an amazing three-egg omelet while our youngest produced a double-layer microwave cake covered in candied oranges. Exactly one year ago, his birthday celebration was a going-away party to begin our travels. Somehow, I felt more prepared to leave everything a year ago than I do now to return.

People keep asking, “What was your favorite part?” or commenting, “I am sure you have learned so much, changed in so many ways.” This year has subtly shaped us in ways I can feel but not see and may never fully know with my mind, only with my heart.  I do know that, like imagining life without kids once you have them, I cannot imagine our lives without this year as we pull into the home stretch. 

It is easier to think of the year in parts, in pieces I want to put into this bag of memories to carry with me back home. 

From Norway, I want to carry back the concept of “friluftsliv.” Directly translated, it means a "free air life," but is more the cultural embodiment of the joyful yet pragmatic people whose relationship with nature is not just a sport or a hobby, but a way of life. It is the Sunday tradition of jaunts in the woods with friends, family, and food. It is the quiet way of seeking first to understand before being understood. It is the sense that everything you do is part of this bigger ecosystem of life that must be treated with reverence. It is the letting go of pretense to be truly in the present.

In Croatia, coffee is not a drink, it is a way of life that I hope to bring home with me. Drinking “a coffee” means a three-hour event with friends or colleagues where the meaning of life is found. Croatian history, politics, and borders are complex.  People may be born, grow up, and die all in the same village, and during that time they may have been a part of three or four different counties. Over a cup of coffee, they make sense of those changes and hold onto what is really important as everything else shifts around them, giving themselves the time and space to see where the conversation and the future may lead. 

In Singapore and Malaysia, art and nature are incorporated into everyday life. These radically different places had that similar quality, which I loved. In Singapore, the hospitals had built-in gardens every few floors to provide open space in the middle of the concrete jungle. The crosswalks had solar resting shades artfully designed to hold onto the light from the day and share it in the evening. Malaysia, while not nearly as modern, still decorated its streets with art. It was not the art of the past, tucked away in museums, but painted on the alley walls and street signs and meant to played with, to inspire, and of course, for a selfie. It is the art of the future, integrated into daily life, and a reminder that we need more than what is practical; we need the beautiful and inspirational.  

Bhutan was a place of learning and reflection. I fully embraced their term “oh la,” which means both “oh well” and signifies honor and respect, as “la” is added to anything of importance. There was reverence in “letting go,” both in their culture and language. Let it go if the road is closed. Let it go if the CT scanner doesn’t work. Let it go if nothing happens as planned. Watching physicians and nurses work with so few resources and so much patience made me reflect on how much harm we do to ourselves and each other by demanding our way. There is value in hard work and preparation, but not in excessive worry about the future or all the details we cannot control. And whenever in doubt, a cup of sweet milk tea makes everything better—so you always make time for tea.

The resilience in Vietnam and Cambodia is a quality I know I will not be able to fully take away, but stand in awe and admiration of. Seeing bones emerge though the ground in mass graves at the Killing Fields, climbing through tunnels built during the Vietnam war, and then being welcomed into homes and hearts of the people who lived through these tragedies was beyond humbling. The ability of the Vietnamese to acknowledge, recognize, remember, and then let go creates a resilience that is propelling the country into the future. In the book Joy, the Dali Lama talks about suffering. When his gallbladder was infected, he reflects on how much less pain he felt when he thought of others suffering and the gratitude he had that he was being taken to a doctor who may be able to help. Problems can look so much smaller when held next to other tragedies. By putting our suffering in context and focusing on gratitude, we can literally create joy, and with it, possibilities. This seems to be at work on a national scale in Vietnam. This resilience left me simultaneously in awe and painfully saddened by our echo chamber of suffering at home, limiting our ability to adapt, grow, and respond.

As we moved North, we found ourselves in increasingly cool and modernized cultures that started our long transition home. I had a lot of expectations for this year and for myself, and as we got closer to home, it became time to reflect upon those goals. One such goal was to do daily exercise; I was going to come back strong, focused, and in the best shape ever. But I found that life still happened. There were temples to see, blog posts to write, work to be done, and a loving family with whom to spend my time. Runs came and went with the weather and illness, and pushups stubbornly remained hard. What I will take from Taiwan is the idea of the “slow run.” Everywhere you went, people were exercising. These were not 20-year-old triathletes; these were 90-year-old women bench pressing on top of a mountain, moms with kids around a track, and women in wheelchairs in a park. The goal was not to be the best. These were active people, not with a goal of performance or perfection, but with a goal of movement and activity. Every day my husband would come home from working out, he’d have a story of an elderly man doing intense exercise at the gym or someone sitting in the splits at the park. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the danger of goals. Once goals are accomplished, you stop. There is a finality. However, when it comes to forming a habit, you add to the story of who you are. When you want to quit smoking, you say, "I quit,” not that you are “trying to quit.” You are more likely to follow through on something if it fits into the story of how you see yourself. I learned in Taiwan to shape my story rather than hold onto and focus on half-finished goals.  

In South Korea, I learned the power of purpose. I rediscovered the purpose of my work this year and saw doors open where before I saw only walls. As we prepared for our time in Japan, I came across the word “ikigai,” often translated as “that which makes life worth living.” This is the concept of having a purpose in life that has meaning to a larger community. This idea of purpose builds resilience and extends life expectancy. Through traveling this year, the truth of my own sense of purpose and the need for that purpose became brilliantly clear.

As we finish our time in Japan, I am glad we are headed home. My backpack of memories is bursting at the seams, and our individual callings are pulling us back. But Japan, a land where you can spend five years mastering the art of a tea ceremony, feels like the perfect place to end. It reminds me of the beauty of perfecting a few things, but that to do this you must let go of the concept that you can do or have it all. The Japanese put attention into every detail, right down to making the bed first thing in the morning to prepare for sleep the following evening. There is ceremony in taking off shoes, the art of the meal, and the greeting of one another. The attention to detail is what gave rise to the economic growth of Japan and makes them stand apart in a world focused on the idea of more. It is this attention to detail of what has become important over this part year that I hope to bring from my time in Japan. 

Note: This article was adapted from Dr. Zink’s personal blog.

By Anne Zink, MD, FACEP