When it comes to vacation, many of us in this hyper-connected digitalized workaholic age have trouble unplugging or at least temporarily doing nothing for a minute.
Even 30 seconds is tough to wait on the curb for the cross walk signal! This is clearly a problem my generation is facing! At least I don’t text and walk.
Often, I feel patterns of vibrations as if notifications were buzzing on my phone and my short-term attention span waning. As someone who was born in 2000, thank goodness I didn’t receive an iPad for Christmas until I was 16, or else I would’ve been doomed. Now I make a conscious effort to put away the screens one hour before bed, not doom scroll every awkward second, eat without devices, eliminate multi-tasking, and wear blue-light glasses when I can.
Heck, I’m 22 and not even on social media! What else could I possibly be doing to limit distractions and screen time before I’m totally disconnected with the world! Somehow I always find something to distract me.
If anyone noticed, I took a brief hiatus these past few weeks during my final college winter break. Believe it or not, 5 weeks off gets boring quick! I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things ASAP. Clearly, this goes hand in hand with being overly busy and discoveries on vacation.
Since second-semester of freshman year once covid hit, the rest of my college experience not only flew by, but the amount of time spent on the screen at home skyrocketed tremendously. I cannot fathom how much time I spent on devices from 2020–2021. If I added it up it was probably more than I’d ever spent previously.
Believe it or not, this was the first winter break of college I went away. I’ve always had this weird obsession with budgeting and doing a cost-benefit analysis over my spending before any trip since the returns aren’t tangible.
Clearly, it doesn’t hurt but up to a point, I have to remind myself that I do have 6+ income streams and haven’t gotten off the couch in what feels like a century so I gave myself a pass this time to enjoy life a bit more.
After all, the younger you are, it’s easier to find time to explore, the more memories will be solidified, and be able to be shared for longer. Plus, I’ve noticed flexibility helps a lot when traveling. Those bags won’t carry themselves!
Off and Online
As I embarked on my mini sunny vacation last week, it dawned on me I’ve become a true American, let alone, New Yorker who can’t sit still for 5 minutes! I felt like a child kicking the front seat of an airplane, begging to find out when we’ll get there or when cell reception will be available. Clearly, after not traveling for a while, I’m a nervous wreck thanks to technology!
After a few days gone by on vacation, I finally started to get into the groove of things. To me this is relaxation. Although I quickly noticed relaxing is a job in itself! Having to deal with your mind alone is no easy task. I would much rather have a chaotic schedule than free time to ponder. A distraction to default to is much more pleasant. Thank you technology.
Even at the resort, the east coasters I saw calling away in the business office closing deals didn’t help keep me zen so I had to take an alternative route around the resort to the beach instead. At least I got some exercise and was off my devices while finding my way around the resort. I thought about opening Google Maps for a minute…
Let It Go
This uneasy feeling of missing work and duties at home which led to trepidation, confusion, and even guilt comes into play for as long as the eighth day of vacation. Yeah, it’s a real thing. According to a 2012 study, they’d found that workers don’t really log off and feel the benefits of vacation until the eighth day!
That’s feels like taking a year off of work for Americans especially since the US is the only advanced nation without federally mandated PTO according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This includes holidays as well. For readers outside of the US, such as in Europe that get over 3+ weeks, I would be curious to know a few things including:
a) How you quiet your mind about what’s going on back home
b) How you spend all that time on or off the devices without going haywire!
Ironically, I was reading about this study mentioned in a Morning Brew email on the beach. After I got my morning briefing, I jotted this fact down to write about today as I’m now back home in the hustle and bustle.
When it comes to our health and happiness which are tightly correlated to relationships and the fulfillment we gain from connections, vacation plays a big role and clearly, Americans aren’t experts in how to take vacations properly.
I’ve come to admire people who take breaks seriously. After all, you must slow down to speed up! The folks that actually log off know how to prioritize what’s important (health and family), split their time accordingly and make the most out of every waking moment!
Tomorrow’s not guaranteed so might as well live it up right? Work hard play hard if you wish!
For all I know as a personal finance guru, this vacation was well worth it. It was hard to convince myself to hit ‘book’ but once I got there, the trip was actually better than anticipating it! The mental, emotional, and physical reprieve from doing absolutely nothing was difficult to get used to but opened my eyes to the world of possibilities. Maybe I’m going delusional now.
Since I’m a New Yorker, I didn’t get a chance to see if the eighth day felt any different. That would’ve been too long on the calendar for my lifestyle. A week was plenty.
I guess we’ll leave it up to the rest of the world to decide!