It’s becoming evermore impossible to keep up with the wealth of sabbatical, career break, and related stories floating around the internets and beyond. So let’s leap right in!

• My favorite oxymoron: Play date.

(BTW, another fave: Play systems.) I remember a dad friend’s young daughter asking him after he got home from work, “Daddy, what’s my job?” He paused, and then nailed it: “Your job is to play!” She ran off, satisfied. Today, play can become uber-prearranged, mega-managed, and expensive (play date organizers charge $400 in NYC).

Childhood is how you learn the essentiality of freedom of time, space, and mind; it’s the original sabbatical that, gradually, Reality schedules out of us. We Boomers should rejoice about the free-range (and digitalia-free) childhoods we enjoyed. This article digs into this ever-vital topic.

• “Career Break,” the other kind

Rebekah offers career advice for Harper’s Bazaar—very nice—but reminds us that “career break” has another definition that may confuse our ditch-the-boss message. “Career break,” of course, can also mean that big moment that you get the big connection, job offer, or promotion to Assistant Manager of Sambo’s. It’s all good, but we hope the mixed messages don’t hurt our campaign.

• Super-singers need respites, too

There’s more to music than Spotify and your little Jambox. Real people make those sounds (sometimes), and then tour for big bucks (since few folks actually buy music anymore). From afar, their lives of sexiness, drugs, and limo lounging looks lovely. But if you’re TayTay, Sammie, or a Stylish lad from Any Direction, this grueling marathon probably gets tiring and tedious fast. We wish them well on their career breaks—and hope they truly have the guts to turn away from the limelight for a while.

• Ed Sheeran’s break: Volunteering at a charity shop

Okay. Ed is everywhere-all-the-time. So this story is suspect. Still, it’s been reported in major media, twittered to death, and been the biggest news for thrift stores since Macklemore. We wish Ed and the store well—and hope the throngs respect the merch.

• Leaving work early: An “act of courage”

A recent Hyundai ad (that you’re surely seen) states,

When did leaving work on time become an act of courage? It’s time to take back our lives.”

Alleluia! What follows is Dude driving off into the streets of New York (where there are no other cars!?!), a boss looking longingly out the window as the Hyundai zips off, and then the questions we are left with. Is this post-apocalyptic vision what might happen if someone left work early? Or is literally everyone else still toiling away indoors? Has that poor boss been working 24/7 for 55 years? Can a SUV really get you off work early? And to quote Peggy Lee: Is that all there is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSn2YrA7f_A

Stay tuned. We hope to hear more about these stories, including whether Hyundai Dude made it back to work on time the next day. I bet he did—if only to make that car payment that may keep him from really escaping someday…