012: Going on vacation~
On burnout and resting, even when you’re already on an extended break
Written while staying up all night out of excitement for our trip! (Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of time to get some rest—our flight is a lovely 13 hours.) I’ve been so excited that I haven’t slept properly in the past three days wheeee~~~
New Zealand has been on the top of my travel list for a long time. I first dreamt of it in high school, convinced it was the most pristine place on earth—a must-visit for anyone. I told myself I’d go as soon as the timing worked out.
Maybe after I graduate college!
Maybe after I’ve saved up after working a few years!
Maybe when this project finishes!
Maybe for a honeymoon!
Eventually, it became a distant dream, something I would say to sound interesting and relatable, yet always backed with an excuse to keep it out of reach. Blogs and guides advise spending at least two weeks there, if not a month—so I waited around for a window of opportunity, except that I’d also close the windows that came.
It’s funny how I do that to myself: going to the gym, going on a diet, even going to the doctor. Heck, I’ve even gotten two surgeries because I didn’t get myself checked out soon enough. So when James and I were planning for the holidays and he suggested we go to New Zealand, I habitually rejected the idea.
More than practical reasons though, I felt like I didn’t deserve to go to on a break—I always treated travel as a reward to look forward to, a temporary escape from the grind. Breaks were for people who had been working and productive, whereas I had been resting for the past few months. I felt guilty somehow, even though I had been invited by James and his parents.
These conflicted feelings revealed a darker truth: that I still hadn’t learned how to rest, despite telling everyone that I was taking a break.
Early in my sabbatical, I craved structure and productivity, desperate to feel like I was still bringing value to something, if not a workplace. This was in July, when I spent every day exploring a rotation of what seemed to be everything—professions, industries, side hustles, prominent figures, business rules, food regulations, you name it. However, because I hadn’t rested properly, I oscillated between manic research and experimentation and intense physical rebounding, sometimes sleeping for more than 12 hours straight. Exhaustion had forced me to lose my grasp of the discipline and structure holding my life together, and I was fearful of what remained.
About a month later, I admitted to James how insecure I was that he was working so hard while I was a bum, with nothing to show for so many days of staying at home.
He looked at me, as if confused by the remark. “But you’re not bumming,” he said. “You’ve been hard at work figuring out your life, trying so many new things to see what you want to do. That’s a full-time job that most people never even start, because it’s so difficult.”
James’s kind comment encouraged me to admit that it was okay and normal to feel so tired. But besides just sleeping and napping (which I admit I already do plenty of), how does one rest?
The Practice of Resting
Back in college when I was a Christian, we were taught to practice “sabbath”—a day where we’d rest and abstain from anything that could be considered work, just like how the Bible says God did after he created the earth. It’s where the term sabbatical came from, incidentally—and it’s a practice I was guilty of breaking all the time. After all, my responsibility as a student was to study and learn—Any minute not making progress was a minute wasted. How could I rest for an entire day each week and trust that everything would still be okay?
I had similar thoughts about practices like meditation, as well. “You just sit there?” I’d ask. “I’d fall asleep doing that,” I’d sneer, quick to dismiss a millennia old practice just because I found the idea boring. (Oh, the hubris of youth…)
As I got older, I grew to see a different angle. Every time I’d complain to my therapist that I was feeling unenergized and unmotivated, the first thing they’d ask is “Well, how have you been managing your energy?”
The question feels simple yet infuriatingly invalidating—like someone asking if you’ve drank enough water when you have a headache. If the solution was so straightforward as just getting 7-8 hours of sleep, you’d think I would have solved it already.
Different Types of Rest
I once discussed the topic of burnout with the head of R&D in my last job. He’s a calming presence with a steely and systems-oriented stoicism. He connected burnout to rest, and said something that stuck with me:
“I see my life outside of my job as important work, too. I work hard spending time with my family to nourish my soul, exercising to increase my strength and stamina, reading and pursuing hobbies to keep my mind and spirit sharp, and sleep to ensure that I recover. It’s because of how intentionally I do those other things that I am able to do good work here.”
He touched on an interesting point, which some experts1 agree on, too: that resting is not the same as sleeping, and that we need different types of rest in order to take care of ourselves.
Some of this is obvious—like saying “no” to a party or hangout when you feel socially overexerted, or unplugging from technology when you feel mentally overwhelmed by the stimuli of notifications and infinite content. What’s less obvious is spending the time to disambiguate the type of “tiredness” we’re experiencing, especially when it’s so tempting to slap a bandage on and sleep or numb the feelings away.
I didn’t realize at the time what I needed the most was emotional rest—to take a break from feeling like I had to give and give until I had nothing left, or that I couldn’t say “no” to anything that seemed like an opportunity to demonstrate that I was a capable and competent ______. Worse, my expectations for myself made me the biggest culprit at hand for emotionally tiring myself out (cue Taylor Swift lyrics).
Eventually, I had to accept that emotional rest meant creating a safe space to process through all of my complicated feelings—and I finally started to feel energized again as a result of taking taking the extended period of time to pursue all forms of rest.
Now, I no longer feel conflicted about going to New Zealand. Instead, I couldn’t be more excited to spend these next few weeks seeing a new country and all its natural beauty, deepening my relationship with James’s parents, and taking in inspiration for future stories from all the experiences I’m about to have (which may or may not include skydiving, tbd). 💀
What about you? How are ways that you’re resting these days and in the upcoming break? Let me know in a reply, or better yet—leave a comment on Substack or share with someone who might also want to read this.
In other news…
Since we’ll be in NZ for the rest of December, I’ll be taking a break and will return to Not a Morning Person in January. I’ll see you all with fresh content in 2023—some topics lined up include my love-hate relationship with reading, some surprising side effects from writing every day, the beginning of the job search, and (of course) my vacation highlights.
In the meantime, I’ll be posting photo/video updates on Instagram (@_wendywu) and tweeting about anything and everything else that comes up @alsowendy. (I created a new Twitter recently after a new writer friend told me that Twitter is like LinkedIn for writers.)
Check out Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s TED talk on the 7 types of rest that every person needs. I was also recommended Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (thanks, Minie!) which also speaks to this topic.
loved this piece!! so glad to her about the different types of rest you're trying to welcome in your life :)
Are we skydiving? 😱