After arriving in San Francisco this afternoon, I met a bunch of my colleagues for dinner at my favorite burrito spot in the Mission. As I’m waiting for our orders and getting salsa for our table, I run into another colleague who just happens to be eating dinner at the same place, as well. We started chatting for a while and he suddenly reminded me that he actually left our company in December. Oops… I don’t think I was ever informed of that?

A number of people I know and respect have left the company in the last few months. A good handful of them didn’t even have jobs lined up for them; they just wanted to take a break, travel, and rest. It’s a ballsy thing to do in a country where there’s no universal healthcare, but I admire them for doing it. I used to always think about doing something like that but never was able to gather the courage to do that. The fear of the unknown is scary to me.