College professors may have the whole work/life balance thing figured out best. Case in point: the notion of sabbatical – paid time off (often a full year) for study, rest, or travel after a few years of work. The origins of the practice in academia are contested, but, as early as the 1880s, universities discovered that occasional breaks from the monotony of teaching resulted in higher faculty satisfaction and vitality.
In late 2017, Italy’s prized CT stallion, Leonardo Fioravanti, failed to requalify for the 2018 tour. You could call it “falling off” or, given Fioravanti handily requalified in 2019, you could call it a brief sabbatical.
Don’t get us wrong, Fioravanti still chased QS points in 2018, but instead of an all-out pursuit, the 21-year-old took some time to travel for travel’s sake – to the Philippines, Morocco, Indonesia, and Ireland. It was a year spent finding balance, he says.
The above represents a distillation of Fioravanti’s extracurricular travels. And if we may be so bold, a proper right-hand tube like the one at 3:24 is enough to put anyone in the proper headspace to return to working life – or in Fioravanti’s case grind away on the QS.
