On Taking Breaks
Sometimes all you need is a break before moving forward.
The other day, my friend asked me if I ever took breaks. I had posted about the fact I was now going to be covering the New York Film Festival, and she messaged me asking if I was never not winning in life. That got me really reflecting about my life and the notion of what a break is to me, because, on the outside, it probably looks like I never stop grinding. I acknowledge that I am a workaholic in some ways, but there are critical things about me that are key to my success, including breaks.
Let’s deep dive into how scheduled and unplanned breaks have really enriched not only my personal life, but my career as well.
I took a gap year after undergrad to simply allow myself to exist.
I had made a spontaneous decision to graduate from my Bachelor of Science degree a year early. I knew before even doing that I wanted to go to graduate school, as that was now a viable option. I never knew it was beforehand as a first generation college student, as my parents never got a degree or went into higher education. I was the kid of a restaurant owner and a factory worker, and while I never may not have had much intellectually as a kid or growing up, I developed a very specific kind of work ethic that taught me the value of money and why we needed it to survive.
My gap year before graduate school was a break, even if it did not appear so. I placed very little expectations on myself during this year besides the fact I wanted to create new work, and I just went with the flow. One day I looked at my bank account and realized I would like some more cash, then applied to freelance writing gigs that sounded remotely interesting to me. That is how I ended up in some of my biggest moneymaking positions today. I didn’t force myself to be productive every day. I read, I wrote, I made money.
Some of this was from privilege. I lived at home with my parents, and I worked two jobs in college and saved enough to make sure all my bills were paid from a year off and basically just existing. I started gardening to grow a lot of our own food, which cut down the family bills a lot. But what I learned the most from this experience was that by the end of it, I was excited to start the next new thing. I knew what I liked, had the opportunity to take free courses and classes in other things, and came out with an eagerness to change the world versus simply moving on to the next thing and burning out.
Saturdays are for relaxing.
I used to work every single day of the week. There were a lot of things in the beginning I did not make any money off of, and were just passion projects that I relentlessly tackled because I knew that I needed and wanted to do this things in the long run. And guess what obviously happened when I worked every single day: I became burned out very quickly. Because I had this expectation on myself that I needed to meet my quotas, that I had set unrealistically for myself, I began to feel really guilt about spending time just reading or watching a movie.
Social media and capitalism sets this concept that we need to always be doing something. As I’ve learned in my graduate school seminars, one of which is focused on Native American history and mythologies, this is the antithesis of being human. No animal is in constant pursuit of food. There are times squirrels are just chilling in trees or chasing each other around in some human’s yard. Humans make themselves more inhumane by searching out ways to exploit the environment and other people in pursuit of more materialistic things, which is a concept I wholeheartedly believe in. For the sake of my mental health and spirituality, I have to take Saturdays off or I’ll go quite insane.
Everything will be okay.
I think this is a problem for a lot of second generation Americans whose parents sacrificed everything for them. My parents, although my mother was a poor white woman, were constantly working in my childhood. At our band concerts, every other kids’ parents and grandparents came to see them perform, but only my mother would be the constant for my sisters and I. My father would always be working. When he was around, he talked consistently about money and being broke, while my mother also talked of money quite a bit, thus leading to raising kids that were very cautious and paranoid about money in the fear of it disappearing.
Where I am from, it is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the country because of the poverty levels we experience. My family escaped from those circumstances, but now, more than ever, we have access to resources that won’t keep us constantly working. It’s enough to take thirty minutes to yourself and assure your mind and body that everything will truly be okay. Manifest it. There’s an entire life ahead of you, and it may be stressful now, but find joy in the little things. It’ll be what keeps you going at the end of the day.
