With the spring semester is in our rearview mirrors, we are currently lazing around in summer. Or that’s what it can feel like. For some, it can be really daunting to actually accept that there’s a lot more free-time on your schedule. The possibilities are nearly endless with what you can do. But freedom can lead people to freak out, the feeling like they are wasting their time when they’re not doing anything for their growth. As you get older, you realize that in periods like this, you don’t have to spend all your time actively doing things for yourself. Because knowing that you’re pausing and enjoying it is actually growth.
I know personally I used to get peeved at myself when I would just laze around and not do anything whenever I had breaks. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I was apparently burned out during my breaks and always used to being constantly busy. I feel it now as a grad student, and it’s hard for me to take breaks because I always feel like I need to be up and running.
With that being said, the key to getting over a burnout is simply taking a pause and letting things happen. By pause, I mean not stressing over goals and missions and just letting things happen by and doing more of the things you love. This can manifest in the form of sleeping in and playing video games – doing things that are a “waste of time” by society standards can be fun.
The summer before grad school in 2020, I was stuck inside because of the pandemic and mainly just watched YouTube and played Animal Crossing when it came out. I wanted to be more productive, whether it was making crafts to sell, reading up on materials science for grad school, make more bread with the pandemic sourdough starter I made, and more. However, the thing that I struggled to grasp with was that I was burned out after being on a constantly high level of stress for four years in undergrad. I felt that I needed to always be doing something, and this new level of free-time made me uneasy because I could’ve done more. In all reality, the pause was needed because I probably wouldn’t have followed through with actually going to grad school. If I had to start research early, I would’ve easily regretted it.
That being said, think about how you’re going to handle this summer. No matter what, as long as you’re healing from this past year, then growth is happening. Whatever you do, have fun and relax now that you got another year done. When you enter the working world, you don’t get summer breaks like this so this is a time to savor lazing around and the longest period of relaxation you’re like likely to get til retirement. Pausing is okay for times like this.