I think we’re losing the ability to truly rest.
We know how to change locations. We know how to go to the beach, to the mountains, on a trip. We know how to pack a suitcase, book a hotel, sit by the water, and tell ourselves we’ve escaped.
But a vacation isn’t just the place where we find ourselves. It’s a state in which, for the first time in a long while, our minds don’t have to prove anything to anyone. And that’s where we most often fall short. Because we go on vacation, but we bring along everything we supposedly left behind.
We carry our work with us on our phones. We carry the messages we haven’t replied to. We carry the people waiting for our decisions. We carry deadlines, debts, pressures, guilt, and that quiet restlessness that won’t be still even by the sea.
Our bodies lie on a lounge chair. But our minds remain at the desk where tough decisions are made. And then seven days pass.
We come back tanned but not lighter inside. We bring home photos but no real peace. We return to work, and by the first morning we know we haven’t rested.
We have merely changed the backdrop of our exhaustion for a short while. Real rest should bring us back to ourselves.
To restore their breath. To restore their clarity. To remind them that they weren’t born just to put out fires, answer messages, and carry the never-ending chaos.
But if we return from our break feeling nervous, exhausted, and already overwhelmed by everything that awaits us, then that wasn’t a break.
It was just a pause between two rounds of exhaustion.
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