Vacations and "breaks" - necessary?

Context:

It's been a while, life is busy. I've been productive but individually speaking, I'm not doing super well in any particular aspect. Usually I'd give that an L(ose) but for my last school term, it is somewhat intended as my previous blog has mentioned: I want to practice in utilizing time more efficiently in general as the most important metric.

My life hit a hard dip during spring break, a break one week in length in February. My family took me to Cancun to "relax", and while I enjoyed the experience, the food, the drinks especially so so much when I was there, looking back I'm not sure if it was a productive experience. Normally people justify vacations (especially the type like Cancun instead of travelling in general) for "recharging". As if the sun of Cancun recharges them like an out of juice cell phone and then they can turn back on to whatever "tough work" they were doing and perform better. That was not the case for me at all.

During the trip I gained roughly 8-10lbs. I messed up my sleep schedules a bit which I've fought so hard in the 2 months prior to fix: not due to too much fun, but rather my dad's next level snoring. Also as I was drinking 15-20 drinks every day, it messed up my daily routines: I brought 2 books over, finished only a quarter of a single book by the end of it.

Needless to say, upon coming back home, I was out of shape mentally and physically. My assignments started to pile up, started missing classes due to bad sleep times, blogs untouched for weeks, spent more time exercising which eats into other hobbies, etc.

I'm happy to report, as of now, I'm back in good shape. That's a full month since my Cancun trip. If this is the cost associated with a "play-hard" vacation, I don't think I will ever play hard again in my life.

Note: this context was originally written for my "health" blog, but I find this topic more interesting to write about for now.

An analogy in diet

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about health topics as I'm trying to lose 25lbs (lost 8lbs so far), tried a new diet, and learnt mind-breaking knowledge about nutrition and diet from a book (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger M.D. I will discuss the book / health related topics in another blog). However as my mind changed gears into pondering about taking bigger breaks in life, especially in reflection of my "played-too-hard" trip at Cancun, I can't help but find the similarities between a diet and the idea of sustainability in general activities.

As a rather mainstream fitness youtuber (Athlean-X) I follow often describe, a diet one doesn't enjoy and have "cheat meals" will never work long term. It's not that you have to be hardcore, but rather, the concept of "cheat meal" is fundamentally flawed. I always believed this to be the core of dieting. I've been vegetarian for 2 years in my life during my teenage years (as a joke btw, don't ask me why); I'm close to a full-blown vegan now; I've also went through drastically different diets in many shades of healthy and unhealthy. I always enjoyed what I eat and the lifestyle I adapted to. A big part is thanks to my born gift of loving to eat practically everything edible - thus any diet includes tons of food I love, but it still requires adaption, exploration, and mindset changes. Some diets were not sustainable, intended as a temporary measure. Others for maintenance or simply bad diets have each rotated in and out on the order of years.

Why do I keep getting in and out of shape? Simply put my priorities in life have shifted greatly, multiple times during the last 10 years. Sometimes I decided to forego my health (and being stupid), other times it isn't voluntary but due to stress, responsibilities and or mental health. I also love to try new things and to experiment with my own body - not always in the smartest way. However whenever I decide on a new diet and not overly stressed by other parts in life, it's easy for me to stick with it long term, no "cheat days" needed (or every day is cheat day).

Am I writing a health blog? No, no. The point of all this is I think there's a strong analogy of dieting to life activities in general. When our goal is something we consider "good" or "valuable" but the path there is not exactly natural or intuitive: this could be a diet for health, or it could be grinding to make money, career progress, etc. I think too many people, myself included, adapt a life style of "I will eat things that make me hate my life for 6 days a week. Then comes the light, the dream, the savior - cheat day". I don't have this problem in dieting, but I do when it comes to work and responsibilities, especially before my most recent changes into a more healthy and productive life style.

Do we need breaks?

The answer is an easy yes when it comes to the day to day. No one can work for 8 hours without breaks. But I don't think "breaks" mean the same thing on a day scale vs a week or month scale. On a daily basis, a break is actually a part of work due to the physiological limits of human bodies. On the other hand, I don't think any vacation or extended break is ever "necessary" on a physiological level, and dare I suggest: weekends included (except maybe labor intensive works). 

Conceptually, our daily state can only be 1 of the 2 binary choices: Either it is sustainable and can be indefinitely maintained at (at least) the same quality, or it is deteriorating in some form, stacking towards a breaking point. Put more simply, either you are happy and well rested on a daily basis, or you are not. Some may suggest a maintenance level at the lower ends as in "got used to the bullshit and can't get any worse," but I personally don't believe it. They may have an extreme level of tolerance but still stacking towards it; or they are stacking them differently, such as transferring em into alcohol or such in the form of health damage.

"bear fckers" - honestly not that bad

The idea of "breaks" in the longer term, then, is an attempt at sustaining long term when the day to day is not sustainable. Each day we sleep a little less but "catch up" on the weekend (doesn't work btw, we may be chronically sleep deprived without knowing due to lowered baselines -> "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walkers), or each day we feel shittier but we binge some shows or games or social outing during the weekends in hopes of filling our cold, empty hearts.

Like diet and sleep, I think this whole concept is fundamentally flawed. I understand why it is a thing, and I understand why there may not be any practical alternatives at times due to life circumstances. I'm lucky enough to live a life that has mostly been a matter of "where do I want to go?" instead of "How do I live to see another day." Though I also had a couple odd stretches in life where I wasn't sure I'd wake up the next day.

While I do not wish to speak much about or for people struggling in ways I have never experienced, I do personally see many people, living a similar life as I do, doing similar things as I do, struggling to obtain a net positive, sustainable day to day life. Why?

Victim Mindset

When the victim mindset is being discussed as a concept, the majority can agree on it as a phenomenon yet at the same time most believe they do not have much of it themselves. I strongly disagree. Admittedly I've only experienced and seen a tiny piece of the world (most of which quite privileged) and this is at best an anecdotal evidence, but from what I see most people, myself included, have a great degree of victim mindset. The ones who have a healthy perspective on their lives, especially going through challenges and troubling times while pursuing personal happiness and goals, are a rare minority. 

I'm not writing about a diet plan, nor am I writing about philosophy. The reason I bring it up is because it stops many people from actively seeking improvements, or actively aligning their true goals and skills with their effort and reality. 

When many people think victim mindset, they think someone whose life is destroyed, but instead of trying his / her best to fix it, he / she goes down the rabbit hole of drugs and gangs or some shit. 

When I think victim mindset, I think about a couple Googlers I've spoke to when I interned there, each of them making easily 200k+ a year. They told me they feel "trapped", burnt out and not happy, but not sure what else they can do. They considered jumping to smaller companies or starting their own stuff, but the pay and benefits are too good at Google thus in contrast the risk of other opportunities become too much to be logical. It's what people may describe as the "golden handcuffs". (Disclaimer - they are not representative of the average Googler. Most seem happy)

They are pretty exaggerated examples, but then I started looking and listening to most people's complaints and how they live their lives. So many just don't line up. A more trivial example is people who say they are trying to lose weight fat but "can't" (wtf does that even mean?)

There're always ways to blame any challenge or failure on external factors. Understanding that, or even articulating it, is not "bad". The important part is: what am I gonna do about it? Am I simply telling a story with an analysis of why such and such happened, before saying "that's why now I'm going hardcore on ... to succeed next time and it's going well" / "that's why I've reassessed my priorities and shifted my focus to ... instead"? 

Or am I saying it to further make myself feel justified that this is the way things have to be? That the world truly is too tough, the career is truly too demanding, or even the job is too good to be given up... and continue onward just like that. 

Back to vacations and cheat days

I hope it is clear in what ways my description of victim mindset relates to the sustainability of every day life. I'm not trying to reach the conclusion of vacations are bad or unnecessary. But one should have a healthy relationship with it. Almost all forms of it can be compared back to dieting. The right way to approach this is to find a routine which can be sustained long term which aligns with our personal goals, skills, and reality. Do realize, not only can the plan change, but goals can be reevaluated and skills can be developed. What will be out of our control is the external factors of reality. 

On this note, I will go back on my own words of weekends being unnecessary. I do believe a perfect alignment should render weekends unnecessary. However, for most "full time jobs" which is a major aspect of adulthood, it is quite inflexible. We can't take half a job for half the pay (sometimes it's just not enough money) and plan our daily schedule as we wish even if we are completely honest with ourselves. Additionally, other priorities may include activities that are not possible on a workday schedule. So sure, weekends can be part of the plan. 

My core message is - we should always seek to improve the day to day sustainability. Even if it's impossible to have a fully sustainable day on workdays, we should seek to improve the routine such that the "negative stacking" is as minimal as possible. Should the need arise and we were to work 3-6 months straight without weekends, it should be do-able, just shitty, but not causing extreme negative life impact long term.

Birdies teaching me how to code!

A good example is entrepreneurship. This year I've taken a New Venture Design course offered by my college, which is essentially "build your own startup" quite formally with great profs who have great industry experience. Our project is a bit mediocre and we are treating it mostly as a college course, but, we had the opportunity to listen to many guest speakers and past alumni who went on to continue their full blown startup journey, raising millions in funds. You always hear people say entrepreneurship is a 80hr-week job, so how is it possible to be sustainable? Ask them, I dunno. There's clearly numerous examples of people sustaining 60-80hr work weeks for years on end. Some do fall apart, but some look happy and energetic. Their goals, skills, effort and reality must aligned quite well.   

We don't need to be like that, but how is it possible that there are people working 40-50hrs a week who complain about life being too busy, when there are people who work 80hrs a week and don't? It's better to have this as an internal discussion with ourselves than to discuss it as a weekend pub rant over drinks. Seeking help can be crucial, but we can't seek meaningful help before we understand what we truly want and need.

I hope I didn't leave some form of elitist, workaholic impression, because if anything I'm the furthest thing from a workaholic. I only want to work towards each day being sustainable. Longer vacations should be taken on occasions because it's part of the plan, not as a "cheat". It doesn't work well and may produce much worse efficiency and result on both ends. 

Conclusion

Before I end this. I'm reminded of a "youtube motivational speech video" - "How to REALLY become a millionaire". Yeah... despite the click baity title, I find most of its content a good reminder of what it takes to ... achieve a dream. My lifelong goal isn't to make the most amount of money, so the video doesn't directly apply to me nor does it to many people. But I have my own dreams and goals, and I believe we still have to be an "all-the-timer" as the video puts it, to pursue our own happiness most successfully. 

This is an 80hr week for happiness, so it can include hiking, netflix and chill, w.e. Just 2 key points:

1. Plan deliberately for each allocation of time. There's no "winging it" when it comes to life priorities. Either we pick A and sacrifice B, or the other way around. Decide consciously on every such conflict. 
2. Once plan is made, follow the video. Put 80hrs every week. Focus on growth / improvement (even if it's gaming or movies: write better reviews, find better content, w.e). Avoid start-stops from distractions. Plans can and should be re-evaluated once in a while, but not too frequently. 

If I can't even stick with that, I need to have more honest conversation with myself:

Who do I really want to become to be happy?

Then fix the plan. If I can say with honesty that I'd rather sacrifice some potential career progression, friendships, even health for reading more reddit, then go for it, add it to the plan!

That's not true for me. But I do in fact say confidently I'd sacrifice all that by a little for gaming. Gaming is a beautiful thing for me. In fact, when I'm tired, stressed, and just want to sit back, I force myself to game. Because in the end, it always makes me feel more satisfied with the new experiences and progress I've made. 

Same holds true for me in writing blogs. 

It's like saying make sure to put 80hrs a week contributing to what we actually want to do to be happy. That really shouldn't be too hard, should it?!

Be an "all-the-timer" for our own goals and happiness, and I'm sure days will become more sustainable. 

Starring my mom in red!