“Luckily, I didn’t have a chemical or biological dependency. So in that sense, I didn’t have an addiction,” Glascoigne said. “But I did feel like I had a lot of peer pressure and more of a psychological dependency on my identity as a party girl or like the cool girl thing that I wanted to be.”

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glascoigne with a guest at Friendsgiving sober pop-up event.

Now, she’s hosting a sober pop-up event at Kobrick Coffee Co. in West Village with a crowd of 75-150 people in their mid twenties and upper thirties. Next to the row of canned and bottled CBD-infused non-alcoholic drinks, a short line waits in front of the coffee bar with drink menus in hand: lychee martini, pumpkin spice martini, hot toddy — all remakes of their alcohol infused counterparts. A range of hippies, wellness influencers and ordinary New Yorkers alternate between playing cards, taking pictures against a backdrop of the event logo and mingling with each other. They all purchased tickets for this event for the same reason — to connect with others without the presence of alcohol. 

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. guests playing games and drinking mocktails at Friendsgiving pop-up event.

The term ‘sober curious’ refers to individuals that classify as just that — people who are interested in reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. The term carries a broad range of interpretations because each person has their own journey in the space. While most people who experiment with this trend take a break from alcohol for a fixed amount of time, some merely try cutting down on their drinking habits and others remove it entirely. The movement began to rise in popularity about three years ago and has since expanded to various markets, like social media platforms, retailers and bars. Now these alcohol-free businesses are at a tipping point and this new form of nightlife may be signifying a larger shift in American drinking culture.

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glasoigne holding mocktail menu at Friendsgiving event.

Glascoigne established her new pop-up bar business, Absence of Proof, earlier this year. It’s one of several new curated community events for the sober and sober curious community. Other similar venues include Kava Social, an elixir bar in Williamsburg or Listen Bar, another alcohol-free pop-up bar. These locations have opened within the last few years in response to the sober curious movement. 

Glascoigne created Absence of Proof as a way to give people like herself options for nightlife that don’t center around drinking. Before she stopped drinking earlier this year, Glascoigne found that alcohol was embedded in every social situation and she felt a disconnect with that kind of routine. 

“I feel like the majority of my weekends were wasted by either being hungover or being out with people that maybe I didn’t really care about being out with.” Glascoigne said. “It was less like a single night and more so just like a series of weekends being like, ‘what am I doing with my life?’”

Glascoigne decided to cut out alcohol as a way to find more meaning in her life. It’s not her first time taking a break from alcohol — Glascoigne recalls going through a “wild child” moment in her teens, which she characterizes as a period of heavy drinking and partying. Following that phase, she decided to give up alcohol for the next three years before returning back to drinking after college. Her first experience with cutting out alcohol draws a stark contrast from what it is now. 

“In college a lot of your social life revolves around partying and drinking,” Glascoigne said. “So I did feel pretty isolated from my peer group and felt like a lot of people didn’t understand what I was doing and maybe didn’t wanna be my friend anymore. So that was super hard and I was isolated.” 

In the past, Glascoigne felt like she had to give up social activities, which is why she ended up reintroducing alcohol in moderation when she moved to New York City. Given that so many social outings and events revolve around alcohol, she found herself returning to her former lifestyle. Now that she has joined the sober curious community, she feels like she has finally  been accepted for her decision to abstain from alcohol. 

Shea Gomez, a 30-year-old living in New York, who has gained over 35,000 followers by documenting her sober curious journey and hosts a podcast called, NoBoozeBabes, had a similar experience. She originally cut out alcohol because she felt unhappy with the decisions she was making when she was drunk. Gomez says that while she wouldn’t try to black out, she would often get carried away during the night and it would inevitably happen because every bar and social activity involved a drink. 

“When I would drink too much and black out, like I would just do things that made absolutely no sense. I would be super emotional.” Gomez said. “My hangovers got so bad in my late twenties and I just felt horrible about myself.”

When she first stopped drinking, she stayed away from nightlife to reduce temptation. Today, she still goes out partying and dancing with her friends, just without alcohol.

“I’m still out there honey, sipping my club soda with cran or non-alcoholic beer,” Gomez said. “And I’m able to get home, even if it’s four in the morning.”

Gomez feels relieved to get a good night of sleep without worrying about a hangover in the morning. She also noticed other positive changes, like feeling less bloated, losing cellulite and gaining more control of her life. 

October 18, 2022 – Shea Gomez posing with a non-alcoholic aperitif at Dante West Village. Image credit: @noboozebabes Instagram.

These discoveries aren’t news to most people. Medical studies proved the negative long-term effects of excessive drinking patterns decades ago, but binge-drinking and partying has remained a social norm among Americans, especially in college. As of 2019, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that 33% of full-time college students ages 18-22 reported binge drinking in the last month. These kinds of patterns have led to addiction, but also tragic events and misbehaviors. Each year, 1,519 college students ages 18-24 die from alcohol-related injuries, including car accidents. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcohlism (NIAAA) 696,000 students ages 18-24 are assaulted by someone under the influence and 97,000 students ages 18-24 report alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. 

People are finally starting to vocalize these issues on social platforms and encourage others to reconsider their drinking patterns. Companies in the Silicon Valley have reshaped their business events and working lifestyle. Pop-up bars and non-alcoholic social spaces have started to enter the nightlife scene in major cities. Influencers, like Glascoigne and Gomez, have gone viral based on documenting their wellness-driven lives without alcohol. 

Glascoigne says that she thinks the sober curious trend took off because the pandemic led people to focus on wellness and reassess their drinking patterns. While the pandemic may have halted many social functions and led to an increase in focus on health and self-care, this concept of intermittently cutting out alcohol as a form of self-exploration and improvement actually goes back to before the pandemic began. 

Tom Santangelo, the Chief Marketing Officer at Spiritless, a non-alcoholic liquor brand that started in 2019, credits the rise of sober curiosity to a few factors. First, he says that many people in the movement are in the post-college period and have reached a life stage where excessive partying and drinking is no longer as exciting or sustainable. Spiritless targets an audience in their upper twenties and early thirties. 

Additionally, the rise of social media has shifted the way people interact with each other and share personal experiences. This has allowed people to voice their opinions in authentic and relatable ways that weren’t necessarily tolerated before and couldn’t be shared on a wide scale. 

“Millennials and sort of lower millennials if you will, are just more open and transparent online, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, et cetera, about how they’re living their lives and what they’re doing,” Santangelo said. “I think people are picking up trends and themes from other people.”

Santangelo says that this shift is even visible in the world of pop-culture. Twenty years ago, celebrities rarely discussed sobriety unless they ended up in treatment because of misuse. Now, mainstream personalities like Blake Lively and Katy Perry have their own non-alcoholic drinking brands and talk about abstaining from alcohol because they don’t like it or never wanted to try it. 

Cutting down on alcohol or cutting it out isn’t solely glamorized through celebrities though. In fact, the way ordinary people normalize this trend is what has given it its widespread appeal. Garrett Thomas, a 31-year-old investment banker living in New York City, gave up alcohol three years ago because he could no longer ignore the mental and physical impacts of drinking. He began to post about his experience on TikTok, which essentially led him to create his own non-alcohol seltzer called DrinkGoldies.

“Now with TikTok, with this interest based graph, you search ‘sobriety New York City’,” Thomas said. “And it’s like, hey, wait a second, there’s this regular person that’s just living life and nothing’s changed and they’re not like a recluse. It’s kind of like this really organic discovery.”

@garrettfromgoldies

For those hoping to use Dry Jan as a catalyst for more substantial change. I did in 2019 and havent looked back. Sometimes it doesnt happen in a month, there is power in momentum!! #dryjanuary

♬ where is my mind (piano version) – your movie soundtrack

People don’t just have to search up terms like sobriety though, the algorithm is built so that Thomas’s videos can end up on any user’s “for you” feed, sharing this alternative side of living and socializing that wasn’t formerly displayed in mainstream media and film. In the past, Thomas notes that centralized distribution of advertisements through print, radio and television allowed the alcohol industry to create any narrative that made their product sell. Drinking was consistently branded as necessary for people to have fun and relax. That kind of programming encouraged people to associate partying and having a good time with alcohol. 

“That’s how advertising used to work up until TikTok. It’s stealing the narrative away from alcohol and big alcohol advertising,” Thomas said. “With the rise of interest based social media, now I pop on your screen, nobody and a million people can watch a video of me saying, ‘hey, dude, I stopped drinking and everything in my life got better’.”

Thomas says advertisement distribution has shifted from largely funded corporate projects to average individuals competing for a story that will bring new and interesting perspectives to viewers.

“People buy from people,” Thomas said. 

In addition to the digital age colliding with the new emphasis on health and wellness, Santangelo believes that the legalization of other substances has altered consumption habits. In the last decade, vaping, CBD, Marijuana and mushrooms have become more widely legalized across the U.S., which has introduced a new set of options for people looking for mind altering substances.

“It’s just changed the ability for you at a younger age to interact, and incorporate some of these things in your life,” Santangelo said. “If there are more avenues available to you in a legal forum, there’s a likelihood that, you know, something that was sort of the only outlet for social recreation will just shrink in terms of its percent of consumption.” 

Even though these substances are gaining popularity, they might not become completely mainstream for a while.  Still, they’re entering the market and providing different alternatives to alcohol. Santangelo doesn’t think alcohol will go away, but he does think the consumption rates and perception of alcohol might change.

“I don’t exactly see it being an avalanche,” he said. “It seems more like chipping away, kind of like erosion of stuff starting to grow.”

Although many in the sober curious movement view alcohol negatively, they don’t necessarily feel that way about all substances. Absence of Proof serves CBD infused drinks and Kava Social offers elixirs, which are drinks that contain medicinal properties. Glascoigne says that she receives frequent messages from people on social media asking if she partakes in microdosing.

The rise in conversation around psychedelics in the wellness space reflect the findings of several new studies that have emerged over the last few years which indicate that psilocybin, the active agent in mushrooms, can be used to treat OCD, substance abuse, and anxiety, among other mental and physical disorders. These findings began to become even more widely publicized when How to Change Your Mind, a Netflix documentary on hallucinogens came out this past summer.

This mindset draws a stark contrast to traditional alcohol recovery programs. Participants in AA groups are vehemently deterred from trying any kind of mood-altering substance out of concern that it could trigger old habits or kickstart a new dependency. Meanwhile, people in the sober curious space have loosely defined goals and don’t necessarily cut out the use of other substances. 

Dazee Mae, a 25-year-old recovering alcoholic from Missouri, thinks that this movement is still beneficial, even if people in the community don’t permanently give up alcohol and all other substances. She feels this way because people in the sober curious community don’t have a chemical and physiological dependency on the substance and she doesn’t think they need to approach sobriety from the same extreme perspective. 

Mae has been completely sober for over a year after years of alcoholism that led her to flipping her car three times while drunk driving. Unlike people who experiment with sober curiosity, Mae had to take medication to subdue the effects of withdrawal during her month and a half detox period. She also had to remove all triggers from her household, including mouthwash and vanilla extract, among other unexpected items.

Mae’s experience differs drastically from sober curious people who mostly deal with disruptions to their social life and lifestyle, but she believes the sober curious movement represents a major leap for American society.

“I think going online and seeing someone be adamant or even advocate for sober curiosity and just living a less alcohol related life is amazing,” Mae said. “Ultimately, if it stays this way, it could be incredibly beneficial.”

At the peak of her alcoholism, Mae consumed a baseline of seven to eight shots of 99 proof alcohol each day — and nobody in her life knew. Since her friends viewed it as normal to drink in every social setting, whether it be at dinner or during a night out, they never realized that she developed a problem with it. 

“I’m so confused why my friends weren’t like, ‘Dazee, why are you showing up drunk to the pregame? Like why are you so sloppy when we’ve only had three beers at this club?’” Mae said. “I didn’t have anyone in my life who made me double think or evaluate my relationship with alcohol.”

Mae believes that this movement is causing people to rethink their drinking habits because in the past, people have often dismissed or failed to notice unhealthy patterns. Addiction remains a stigmatized disease and people feel reluctant to put themselves in a category that might attract speculation and judgment. Glascoigne felt this firsthand when she first stopped drinking a few years ago and Reynolds still experiences it with older clients who may not know about the new movement. 

When Reynolds cut out drinking a few months ago, she also recalls feeling awkward on first dates when she had to let them know she wasn’t drinking. By normalizing not drinking, people are becoming more comfortable with taking a step back in a socially acceptable way. 

“Before there was such a stigma around, you know, either drinking or not drinking. Like, ‘are you sober or are you not?’’ Reynolds said. “It kind of removes that because sober curiosity is like a movement of empowerment and it’s all about taking a step back and analyzing your relationship with something that isn’t good for you.”

Despite initial discomfort, Reynolds ended up feeling empowered by resisting the urge to drink in these settings and even found that it made the men she was dating get more creative with their outing ideas. 

Even smaller efforts within this movement, like Sober October or Dry January represent socially acceptable and approachable experiments for people to try out sobriety. These months bring in a large number of participants and since it’s publicized so much and viewed casually, people feel less intimidated about trying it out. 

According to a study from food and drink research firm, CGA, 35% of US adults skipped alcohol in January 2022, compared to 21% in 2019. With Dry January around the corner and sober-curiosity rising in traction with young Americans, more people are considering trying out an alcohol-free lifestyle to start off the new year. 

This newfound acceptance and normalization essentially led people like Shea Gomez to start her sober journey in the first place. Initially, Gomez decided to cut out alcohol for three months. This felt like an attainable goal that would allow her to reevaluate the way she was drinking and why she was often leaning on it in social settings.

“I had an end date,” Gomez said. “I was like, great, and then I’ll go back to drinking. But I felt so good and I noticed so many positive changes that I kept extending it…And I, you know, kept extending, kept extending. And I really was able to realize clearly that this is the best path for me.”

Now that the demand for spiritless liquors and non-alcoholic beverages are growing, companies are starting to create more of these products. By having sober pop-up bars and alcohol-free beverages available, people have more opportunity to explore sober curiosity and feel included while doing so, whether that’s through a sober event or at a regular bar that offers non-alcoholic options. Now that this movement has steadily increased for over three years, Santangelo says that 2023 will be a telling year for the sober space.

“Non-alcoholic spirits and the non-alcoholic space in general, is sort of at a tipping point right now,” Santangelo said. “The tipping point for this category will be when mass retailers start to lean into it, and we’re just getting to that point now.”

Spiritless started out slow in the pandemic, but kicked off in 2021 when they signed deals with Total Wine and Spirits, Amazon and a few other wine and liquor retailers. As Spiritless and other non-alcoholic liquor brands, like Seed Lip, continue to grow and influencers create brands around this movement, major retailers, businesses, restaurants and workplaces will need to accommodate this new community.

The post Sober Curiosity: Where It Came From and Where It’s Headed appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

The vibrant red walls, fluorescent ring lights and scattered photographs of legendary basketball scenes painted an upbeat atmosphere in Tha Illest Barber Shop, located in the South side of Racine. A black and white portrait of Marilyn Monroe sits next to a washed out wall hanging with slanted words that read, “dreams to reality”. It’s difficult to imagine that several of the employees are felons or that the barber shop itself had been the site of a stabbing just a few months ago. The incident occurred between the co-owner of the shop and a man who he says came and provoked fighting and violence. 

Some of the employees at the barber shop won’t be voting because they lost their right as felons. Others won’t be voting because they’ve lost hope that politics will lead to change. After growing up in poor areas with high crime rates and frequent discrimination, these residents feel like their government has failed them — and it’s turned them off from any kind of civic participation. 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from inside Tha Illest Barber Shop. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

Ron Johnson, who won his campaign for re-election, has served as a US Senator representing Wisconsin for eight years. His campaign was largely focused on tackling crime and drugs, but not in a way that helps those stuck in the cycle of it, according to Michael Torres Peterson, a 39-year-old employee at Tha Illest Barber Shop. Rather than prevent crime in the Southern part of the city where violence is most prevalent, he believes politicans in the area have increased police presence and focused on keeping the safer areas secure from external threats. Peterson believes that the areas that need support from government services, have remained largely unaddressed.

Peterson says that he wouldn’t vote even if he had the right to do so. He feels that the tough on crime approach that Johnson has embraced, only leads to repetitive incarceration cycles with the same people in and out of prison. It also doesn’t help remediate the parts of Racine that are in need of crime reduction.

“Like you look at certain areas in Racine, it has looked the same for years,” Peterson said.  “Politicians that have been elected over the years that promise change in certain areas in Racine, and all they did was increase more police in the same exact areas. And the crime rate is still the same.”

According to Crime Grade’s estimates, Racine has a crime rate of 47.58 per 1,000 residents. To put that in perspective, 82% of cities in the U.S. are safer than Racine. 

Peterson says that in certain parts of the city, like the Northwest,which is considered safer, the streets look cleaner and feel safer than they did before — but they weren’t the areas that needed help. As someone who has been incarcerated three times, Peterson feels that increasing police presence in the south part of Racine only contributes to stagnant crime rates and increasing incarceration rates. He also says that sending people in and out of prison breaks up families, which leads the children of those in prison to follow similar paths. 

Peterson doesn’t only blame the current senator though. While Johnson, a conservative politician, has served for eight years, Governor Tony Evers has served since 2019 and represents the Democratic Party. When he looks at his community, Peterson finds inadequacy from both parties and believes both remain equally self-motivated.

“When it’s beneficial to politics, to, to utilize the black vote, that’s when black people become important, and that’s when minorities become important.” Peterson said. “But other than that, only time you’re important is when they put you in cups and chains and throw you in the system.”

He says that the Democratic party may build their platform on diversity, but they often fail to follow through on commitments. On a local level, the minority communities that need the most help often remain underserved. 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from Tha Illest Barber Shop. Employee Germaine Spears styles a customer. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

“Now you try to contact that person who is just smiling in your face and shaking your hand. You get their secretary, you get a voicemail, you get an ‘oh, we’ll call you back’, you might get an email,” Peterson said. “I’s not coming from that individual that just shook your hand, smiled in your face, and made you all types of promises.”

Peterson isn’t the only one to feel like politicians care more about the race than they do about making an actual difference to the people voting for them. In fact, when Jamie Peterson, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), introduced Senate Candidate and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes at his Kenosha rally on Nov. 6, he brought up a story that raised this exact issue. While canvassing for the South Carolina Democratic party in 2014, he recounts knocking on the door of an African American man who said he had no interest in voting. He was more concerned about the dirt road that he lived on getting paved; the road had remained untouched for multiple election cycles. 

“Everybody has that proverbial dirt road,” Harrison said.”Because you have politicians who have made promises, but they don’t do them.” 

Harrison shares this anecdote as a reminder to elect politicians that will carry out their promises and serve all residents of the area they’re elected in, a standard that he feels the acting senator hasn’t done. The example from 2014 reinforces the same message that Peterson feels in 2022. 

“You all have something very different here in Wisconsin. You have leadership in folks like Governor Evers and Lieutenant Governor Barnes who have made promises,” Harrison said. “You all committed in 2020 because you all went to the polls and elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who made promises and they have worked hard to keep them.”

Peterson’s coworker at the barber shop, Germaine Spears, 31, shares a similar perspective. Spears has never been incarcerated but has been branded by other traumatizing experiences. He vividly remembers checking in with his friend after a shooting in the area that occurred in 2013. He says that as he was walking and talking on the phone, he says he was aggressively confronted by police who accused him of matching the description of the shooter. He recalls this instance as his first negative encounter with police. Then, at age 26, Spears’ friend, Donte Shannon, died after being shot by police in a chase. 

Even though he voted for Obama back in 2012, he’s lost all interest in politics in the years since. He’s seen too much suffering and not enough change to care about who gets elected next.

“Take Biden for example, he forgets what he says,” Spears said, referring to Biden’s promise to forgive student loans. 

Spears, like many others, made financial decisions based on the expectation of student loan forgiveness and says he now has $20,000 of debt that he has to pay off. At some point, when people are struggling, they stop caring about the petty arguments between parties and hope for improvement in their lives. 

Peterson and Spears, who have dealt with the same issues their whole lives, want to see visible change. For Peterson though, it feels like the two parties are more concerned with beating eachother down than with actually creating platforms that will make a difference for those in need. 

“Why do you have to always exploit somebody’s negatives to get what you want in life?” Peterson said. “If you come into it with a negative agenda of pointing out somebody else’s negative agenda, why would I even want to vote for you?” 

Peterson’s reaction to polarization is common among swing voters. According to a 2019 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation that analyzed the 2016 election results, nearly a quarter of swing voters didn’t vote. This kind of turnout may explain why the election ended up being so close between Johnson and Barnes, a race that was expected to overwhelmingly lean conservative. 

As the country continues to become increasingly polarized, swing states like Wisconsin are losing voters by focusing more on exploiting their opponent. Even in Barnes’ rally, he focused heavily on Johnson’s faults. While he encouraged the crowd to vote blue if they want to see change, he didn’t explicitly get into his plan of action to make change happen. 

“There are no ads saying that, ‘Oh, thank you Ron Johnson for doing all this incredible work for us’, because he hasn’t, he hasn’t done anything for us,” Barnes said. “It is just wild to believe a person who’s been in office for 12 years doesn’t have a single positive ad about his campaign.”

Barnes even noted the fact that the speech primarily focused on Johnson and his failure to help communities in need.

“And I hate to go on and on and on about ’em, right?” Johnson said. “Because honestly, this should be about our values and our vision, and it is. That’s what the campaign is about.” 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from outside Tha Illest Barber Shop. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

While Johnson focused less on his opponent, he also took part in shaming his approach to crime and mentioned that Barnes was ill-equipped for the job. Nikki Haley, who introduced Johnson, mainly discussed points in line with the larger party goals. Still though, she led a chant where she repeated the phrase, ‘not us, that’s them’, referring to all the shortcomings of the Democratic party platform. 

Without attending either rally, Peterson knows the kind of rhetoric that politicians were taking part in because he’s seen it many times before. He doesn’t want to contribute to the negativity from both sides — what he wants is a better economy and life for people in his community. 

With the exception of Trump, who gave out stimulus checks during the pandemic, Peterson says that he’s never received tangible aid from any politician. This is a factor that might change the way he views politicians. 

“At the end of the day, like he did something,” Peterson said. “He was delivering money to people’s front doors. God bless Trump.”

Peterson made it clear that he isn’t a fan of Trump but his perspective demonstrates the importance of government aid. He went as far as saying that drug dealers contribute more positively to his community than the government does, because they’re providing some kind of monetary relief. 

After years of stagnancy and financial qualms, people like Peterson and Spears have  given up. Moving forward, Spears said that the best he can do is educate his children and encourage them to stay out of trouble. 

“I don’t even want to have any type of encounters. I don’t wanna be stereotyped,” Spears said. “I lost all hope to be honest.”

The post Hopelessness in Wisconsin — where both parties have failed appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

As the votes come in for the 2022 election, results show that Republicans didn’t have the red wave that they predicted. But with the races closer than expected, democrats are left to wonder where they could’ve closed the gap. We visited a local barber shop in Racine Wisconsin in the days preceding the election, to hear their take on the political situation.

This piece was produced by Ana Altchek and Sabrina Salovitz for NYU Pavement Pieces

The post Closing the gap: Democratic shortcomings in the 2022 election appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, ancient architecture and the aroma of freshly baked pita on every street corner, I knew shortly after I arrived that I would stay a while. The tight knit community of warm, laid-back, yet distinctively blunt neighbors felt comforting in its familiarity and reminded me of my Mediterranean roots. Fairly quickly, I began to recognize the baristas that served me coffee everyday, the guitar players that played every evening on the boardwalk and the locals that I passed on my daily walks. It made it easy to press pause on relationships back home and kept me from ever feeling lonely.

My trip to the Middle East may sound like a glamorous Gen-Z rewrite of Eat, Pray, Love —  but I have no summer romance to report and while I did eat and pray, I also worked 80-hours a week. Still, the time away from my usual environment, social group and cultural expectations allowed me to release my rigid mindset and expectations about my life back home. When I initially booked my flight, I had just moved back home for the first time, started a new job that I didn’t resonate with and gone through a breakup. Instead of embracing the early start to my career, I removed myself from my stagnant day-to-day routine that was turning me bitter and immersed myself in Mediterranean culture. This transformed my perspective and helped me return with a new sense of purpose and clarity. 

My post-graduation existential crisis was hardly revolutionary — City Mental Health conducted a study in 2021 that revealed 49% of college graduates feel down after they finish their studies. The pressure to land a job, like it and then commit to it every day for the next couple years can be overwhelming for many. To make matters worse, people are bombarded with the news of everyone else’s achievements on social media — proposals, job offers and grad school admissions. Rather than hope that the wheel of fortune spins their way before burning out, young people that are struggling to find direction should escape their environment and social circle for a brief period to gain a fresh perspective. This can help provide insight into their goals and also give them the mental break they need to feel more driven when they return. 

While older generations sometimes view this path as idealistic or indicative of a poor ethic, Andrew Jacobs, a health and science reporter at The New York Times, demonstrates the value of travel. In 1985, Jacobs decided to take a year off of college to live in China and travel through Asia. At the time, the AIDS crisis had recently emerged and the Cold War was ongoing. Jacobs says that he needed a change of scenery and environment. 

“It was all there when I came back. The friendships and relationships, sure they get put on hold,” Jacobs said. “But in return I would say you get a very rich experience and it sort of alters your world views.”

June 2022, Tel-Aviv Beach. Evening sunset at Tel-Aviv Beach in Israel.

Jacobs had such a positive experience that he returned to China after he graduated to teach English for a year and then continued to travel for another year working a range of different jobs. During his time abroad, he studied Mandarin, Chinese, Japanese, and Nepalese. He also worked in varying roles and spent his time learning about the different cultures in the places he traveled.

Taking a break doesn’t—and shouldn’t—equate to a vacation. It should resemble a journey that leads to the next chapter in life. 

With remote work, many employees now have the opportunity to live wherever they want. Even if some workplaces don’t allow that level of freedom, a long list of companies offer fully virtual work. Working at a restaurant or as an au pair exist as other options that allow for deeper cultural immersion in a foreign location. Many who take gap years also do community service or specific programs. Without some kind of job or purpose abroad though, there is less merit to leaving the country for an extended period of time.

This change in scenery doesn’t need to occur at an international location but aside from potentially learning a new language, staying in a new country for an extended period of time has many benefits. In a 2020 survey by National Civility Community Corps (NCCC), the gap year organization discovered that 71%of people who did a gap year abroad experienced positive improvements with adapting to new situations. Additionally 66%of respondents noticed they responded better to unexpected challenges and also worked better with people different than them. 

Taking a gap year or few months away isn’t just about traveling abroad, it’s about removing oneself from a space or social environment that no longer fuels creativity. Sometimes, looking outside is necessary to fully look within and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Staying in the same location and social circle can sometimes block productivity and inspiration because of the temptation to compare oneself to everyone around them.

Residents in foreign countries tend to have more access to travel. Europeans are known to casually take trains across borders and the majority of Israelis travel for 6-months after they finish their mandatory army service. In the U.S., travel is viewed more as a luxury and for good reason—flights to Europe, Asia and the Middle East remain out of reach for many Americans. With that said, many cities offer a low-cost of living and by staying in hostels and sticking to a food budget, these trips don’t have to be extravagant. By sticking to a limited spending plan, travelers may allow themselves to further immerse in the culture.

The benefits to doing so can even be measured through improved academic achievement. According to a study from Middlebury, students who took a gap year performed higher academically than those who didn’t. In a survey conducted by the Gap Year Association, 84%of respondents reported feeling more academically motivated after their year off. Additionally, 81% said that their gap year ended up influencing their career paths. Thus, the separation from everyday monotony can actually push someone further along than if they stay consistent yet stagnant in their current role.

This was the case for Jacobs, who was at a point where he felt he needed to leave his home in New York City and experience a new location. As Jacobs watched different political events unfold around the world, he also discovered his appetite for journalism, which eventually led him to his current role at The New York Times. Looking back, he says his time abroad was essential to his career.

“I was definitely much more outward focused in terms of the world,” Jacobs said. “If you don’t leave the U.S., you get sort of insular in your focus. It opened my eyes to, it’s kind of cliche, but the wide world. It helped develop this interest in Asia that persisted for a long time. It shifted my world view a little. I saw people in Asia as friends.”

July 2022, Dead Sea. Views above the Dead Sea.

As a journalist, Jacobs finds that living internationally is crucial to the job. However, he views living abroad as a requisite for life because of the way it expands perspectives. Without taking a break early on in his or her career, a person may not have any idea what they are looking for in a job or missing in themselves. 

Psychologists now refer to the age group of 18-25 as another phase of development, called ‘Emerging Adulthood’ which marks the transitional period between the ages of 18-25. With such little life experience, the job market often works like a lottery for recent college graduates and leaves many young people feeling dissatisfied with the industry they chose and the occupation they landed with. While a strong work ethic is a vital component of any success story, working without a sense of purpose or direction most likely won’t deliver the American dream. 

Even though the word ‘escape’ carries a negative connotation for some, sometimes escape is necessary.  Transporting to a different location allows people to gain new meaning in their lives by obtaining a clearer picture of what wasn’t working before. By seeing new places, meeting different kinds of people and experiencing struggles that cross unchartered territory, the opportunity to grow arises.

When life gets hard, I leave, I process what went wrong, and I formulate a plan for moving forward. Perhaps you should try this out too.

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The event featured a line of booths representing projects and companies that collaborated with Microsoft Garage to push forward innovative ideas and advanced tech developments. Among the approximately 300-guests were New York City Mayor, Eric Adams and Vice Chair and President of Microsoft Corporation, Brad Smith.

Aside from the catered delicacies, and lofty business conversations between CEOs and tech gurus from the Silicon Valley and New York City, the wide room filled with visual displays served as a preview for the kind of innovation and creativity that will take place in the new space. While some people may merely see robots and abstract scientific theories, the opening of a new Garage site will offer technology development for a higher purpose.

“There is nothing more impactful than a purpose-driven life,” Adams said. “We can create all the tech we want but if it’s going to be administered to broken people with broken systems, we’re broken too.”

When Adams addressed the guests, he shared a personal anecdote about watching an 11-year-old child arrested for robbery when he was a teenager. He says this moment inspired him to fix New York City by fostering an environment that helps people go beyond their circumstances and share their vision with the world. The new Microsoft implementation works to do just that. 

Smith reiterates this message in his opening remarks by reminding guests of Microsoft Gargage’s impact around the world, but in particular, New York City.

“It’s for everybody. Especially when we think of the needs everyone has in terms of digital equity and what it means for everyone,” Smith said. “What happens in this garage might be a real game changer for what happens in the future.”

The Garage already has Microsoft volunteers teaching classes at 43 different schools in the city. By hosting hackathons and other collaborative events, as well as teaming up with nonprofits and funding new projects, The Garage paves a path for people to unleash their creativity in ways that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. 

Urban Arts, a program that caters to marginalized schools in New York City and helps students create their own video games, has been able to do just that. Their organization partners students with game production managers, mentors in the field and NYU students to teach game design and computer development software skills. By providing all of the computers and research technology, Urban Arts had the ability to win first place in the Game For Change (G4C) Student Challenge three years in a row. G4C Student Challenge is a national competition that invites students to create digital games that reflect issues in their communities, for the chance to win up to $10,000 in scholarship money.

Daquan Griffiths, an alumni of the program, still remembers the day that Urban Arts visited his high school for the first time. Griffiths says that his school had a large minority population and was in an underprivileged area in the community. By giving kids in these environments the tools and opportunity to succeed, students were able to channel their creativity and reach higher success than the companies creating games as a profession. 

“Voices can only be heard as much as you speak to them,” Griffiths said.

Microsoft has also fostered creativity and innovation in students through Alchemist Club Studios, a metaverse portal and learning space for alchemist apprentices who are ready to learn in the digital universe. The founder and CEO of the first reality lab to exist, Wednaud Ronelus, says that Microsoft fully sponsored and supported his lab from the time it was just an idea. 

Ronelus invented the lab out of a passion for teaching science to elementary students. He says that many kids who wait until middle or high school already have preconceived notions about the difficulty of science and feel less motivated to devote themselves to the subject.

“In order to educate we have to thin the system,” Ronelus said. “Alchemist Club Studios offers a learning space in a real classroom setting. Any child in the school can come to science class to experience what’s going on in space and nature.”  

By ingraining science in students’ regular school life at an early age, Ronelus intends to break down barriers that discourage students with less confidence to believe they can succeed at a challenging subject. By unveiling the theories at a younger age, he hopes that all students will feel more inclined to pursue the field of STEM.

Not all of Microsoft’s projects have a specific goal in mind though. The Garage facilitates an environment where all technological exploration is encouraged. This supports the company mindset that any new advancement will continue to allow for scientific breakthroughs that improve the world and increase accessibility for everyone. 

At the AC-State booth, two-feet-wide and three-feet-tall robots attracted a sizable audience as they moved along the table in repetitive movements. Rajan Chari, an employee at the company, says that the project is partially funded by the Garage, which provides labs and space for experiments, and is going towards creating controllable latent states with multi-inverse models. This helps them create algorithms, plan graphs, show models, and then formulate sophisticated skills. 

While the robots don’t have a specific purpose at this time, they are providing knowledge about new terrains in the world and can reach spaces that humans can’t. 

“These findings will end up in textbooks,” Chari said. They will help scientists create new theories, algorithms, and research that advances science. 

None of these projects would exist without Microsoft and The Garage. Now, people all over New York City will have a designated place to pitch their ideas, team up with like minded experts in their field of interest and create innovations that have the power to change lives. 

“It’s why we do what we do,” Brad Smith said. “It’s the opportunity for new forms of creativity.”

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