48 - A sabbatical year I have never evaluated the possibility to take a sabbatical year, before now. The reason that led me not to think about it is that in Italy a gap year is seen as something fairly negative, particularly where I live, i.e. in Northern Italy. This is because it is the most productive part of the country and work is a value deeply rooted in our culture. In fact, during my life I have heard a lot of stories of men or women who committed some crimes, but they were rehabilitated by popular opinion simply because they were hard worker. These stories have always seemed grotesque to me, because I don't value a human being based on his or her work, but where I have grown up it have been normal to do so. Returning to the main topic, a sabbatical might be useful as a way to recharge our batteries or to completely dedicate a period of our lives to ourselves. But, at the end of the day, our life is limited, because each of us has a specific "expiration date" and we can't escape it. Hence, taking only a year to do something special in our life, I don't think it should be seen as something to avoid, but on the contrary as a positive thing. Nowadays the life is very dynamic and stop thinking about our future or problems for an entire year, may be a solution to many individual problems, especially for those which exploded in the last years, such as depression and/or anxiety. What do you think about the idea of taking a gap year?