Would you take a year off?

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote about a bewildering choice made by several elite Yale Law School graduates last year to pass on an offer to take $80,000, plus benefits, plus student loan payments, to defer for a year starting as Associates at the elite Cravath law firm in New York.

Ashby Jones, who writes the Journal's Law Blog, points out some reasons why a student might choose to go ahead and work: the offer was optional, and the full-time pay is double the deferral offer; the students have been trained to do something and they want to get on with doing it; and, the types of people who thrive at top-tier law schools value structure in their lives, so a year with no structure or externally-imposed goals would be unthinkable.

But still. To me, the opportunity to get paid for a year off, before starting a job that is sure to consume nearly every waking hour for the first several years, seems a no brainer. Even now, mid-career, the idea of a sabbatical to pursue other interests for a year or so would be a welcome opportunity. I could write more, I could travel with the kids, I could be much more active for a year in church and charity work. I wonder if I would ever want to return to an office.

What about you? Would you take the money? What would you do for a year if you didn't have to work to support yourself?