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Home » Latest Posts » Summertime Sadness: Why Break Stresses Me Out
Summer Break

Summertime Sadness: Why Break Stresses Me Out

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Alyssa Willeford July 26, 2022

Doing the most comes naturally to me. At school and at work, I always try to do 110%. I always, always try to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of my time and to achieve as much as I possibly can. When I look at those around me and feel intimidated by the amazing things they achieve every day, I can silence my fears by knuckling down and working harder. If I have any nagging doubts about the way I spend my life, I can usually quiet them simply by trying harder, reaching farther and stretching towards the next big thing.

I always seem to struggle to find something satisfactory to do with my summer. During the school year, schoolwork comes down a clearly defined pipeline, and success feels as simple as checking all the boxes and keeping my GPA as high as I can. During the summer, though, everything seems much hazier. I can’t find a hamster wheel to mindlessly run in, so I stress endlessly about how to spend my time.

Possibilities

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On one hand, the possibilities seem limitless. I could have a summer job, working at a store or a restaurant and learning valuable lessons about life as well as the way the world works. I could take the time to travel, seeing new places and exciting new things and perhaps picking up a fresh dose of perspective. I could engage deeply with one of my hobbies and maybe create something truly unique and special. I could even just savor getting the space and time to do nothing, a gift that the world otherwise never seems to grant.

On the other hand, I feel incredibly constrained by my worries and fears. My anxious mind can always find a reason not to do whatever it is I find myself gravitate towards. I would enjoy spending time traveling or working on a hobby, of course, but I can’t stop wondering whether I could find a better way to set myself up for success later on. On the professional side, a summer job, especially an internship, would give me exactly the career skills (and money) that I want so desperately. However, could that kind of position just set me up for the same kind of grind that I put myself through during the school year?

Decisions

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In reality, I constantly make choices just like the ones I fret over at the beginning of every summer. I enjoy some free time every day during the school year, and I could make how I spend those small chunks of time into as much of a puzzle as how I spend my summer. Because summer break feels like such a monolith, it seems like a big decision I have to make all at once – it feels much larger and much scarier to me.

So what now?

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Life’s problems can sometimes solve themselves in ways we don’t anticipate. This current summer break marks the beginning of the end of my college experience, and I may never have another three-month chunk of unstructured time to worry about how to spend. I could imagine that sense of finality giving me terrible anxiety, but I find the opposite.

Perhaps ironically, the realization that I’ll never take another break like this gave me a new understanding of how little the way that I spend it matters in the long run. I doubt that any 70-year-old, looking back on a life well spent, dwells long on what they did during their college summer breaks. Even if I could literally be the perfect student and the ideal careerist, I couldn’t find my dream job this summer – they tend not to hire for three-month stints. Even if I turned into the adventurous and enthusiastic person I dream of becoming, I doubt I could go on a wondrous voyage of self-discovery in some magical international destination; I just don’t have the cash. Instead, I just need to focus on the opportunities I do enjoy and the meaning I can find. After all, thinking all day about the things you don’t have would make anyone unhappy.

About Alyssa Willeford

Vassar ’23, but I go home to Seattle over break. When I’m not writing, I’m playing video games, cooking, and petting my two awful cats.

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