[userulluipeste]

Although I see a lot of sibling comments, their message is about managing the money obtained from previous burst of (one's specialty related) activity, so I'd add something different. There are also cases when one may have another source of income (passive or whatever alternative active type may be at hand, there always is) or means of supporting oneself (say, having the needs covered by enrollment in a volunteer program). It's not great, but bearable. In that state a return to employment could mean in fact just getting back to one's previous quality of life and regaining access to resource levels that allows one to plan/dream long term. The trick is to plan ahead for such situations and not get over-leveraged.