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In her Boston apartment she lived beneath a drummer and beside a four-lane highway, where sirens were constantly blaring.

She decided to ditch the city life, sold almost everything she owned and packed two bags of old clothes to go to the bush with her husband near Willisville, Ont., north of Manitoulin Island.

“I just took the leap,” she said, describing her log cabin, accessible only by boat, hidden in dense forest, with nothing more than her thoughts and the sound of animals to entertain her.

When she wasn’t dodging bears and picking wild blueberries, Butzer was adjusting to a life unknown to her.

“At first I was basically thinking to myself, ‘I need to be doing something. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I need to be productive. I’m sitting here watching a chipmunk running around and that’s not productive at all.’ ”

But she soaked in the silence and peaceful surroundings and had a new appreciation for the wilderness: leaves rubbing against each other as the wind blew and the sound of the lake became part of her.

“As the weeks went on, I was actually amazed at how content I became. I would just stare at the trees, watch the sky, go fishing and read.”

And with this experience she learned the value of doing something you want instead of something those around you expect.

“I felt my body and mind needed that time to just not be doing anything and not be stuck in this rat race of produce, produce, produce.”

Butzer has made another leap of faith. Last week she moved to Prague, in the Czech Republic, where she’ll teach positive psychology at a university while her husband works as an artist.

“I don’t think that we do that kind of thing enough in society — doing what we feel like. There might not really be a logical explanation like your parents may want. But I just feel like having this experience, so I am going to go for it.”