The Thought Habits

It starts as a background hum. A quiet thought that becomes a browser tab, a reward, a survival mechanism. You’re not planning a trip so much as building a lifeboat. One that floats six months into the future and promises you’ll feel like yourself again when you get there.

You tell yourself it’s just a break. A reset. A harmless indulgence. But the truth is harder: the life you’re living in between vacations isn’t working.

This isn’t about travel. This is about how many days you’re willing to forfeit while waiting for the next one that feels worth showing up for.

There’s a difference between having something to look forward to and outsourcing your entire sense of relief to a change in location.

You don’t need more PTO. You need a life that doesn’t require escape velocity.

What Happens When You Stop Running the Numbers?

Most people don’t realize they’ve done the math. But they have. They’ve calculated how many weeks they can grind through before they hit a wall. They’ve figured out the exact level of burnout they can tolerate before the next long weekend. They’ve made peace with the fact that joy, rest, and aliveness have been cordoned off to rare, fragile pockets of time that must be earned through sacrifice.

The real problem isn’t that you want a break. It’s that you’ve stopped expecting anything better in the middle.

There’s no courage in waiting out your own life.

The Exit Is Not in Terminal 1

You’ve already done harder things than this. You’ve rewritten your life on short notice, held it together through grief, deadlines, and someone else’s spreadsheet. You’ve stayed up late making plans that never gave you back the energy they took. You’ve fantasized about quitting something, anything, just to feel like you had a choice again.

So here it is.

Look at your real life the way you look at a trip you’re excited about. Audit it like your sanity depends on it, because it might. Where are you bleeding time, energy, and attention? What are you keeping alive out of obligation that stopped serving you three years ago? What would it take to make your Monday feel less like a punishment?

Most of this isn’t about time management. It’s about permission.

Not permission to do less. Permission to build differently.

Vacation You Wasn’t Magic. She Was Just Unburdened.

She didn’t hate mornings. She wasn’t addicted to dopamine hits. She wasn’t a better person. She just had space.

She had nothing to prove and nothing to clean before bed. She made choices without resentment. She remembered what pleasure feels like when it isn’t being rationed.

That version of you isn’t waiting in Cabo. She’s buried under logistics, invisible labour, and your spreadsheet of deferred dreams. You don’t have to quit everything to find her. But you do have to decide she’s worth resurrecting now.

And that might mean letting go of what was never yours to carry. Are you ready?