Why does time off feel so out of reach?

Working long hours and feeling guilty for taking vacation has become too normalized

Apparently, I’m supposed to value experiences over things. At least that’s the trope that’s associated with millennials, which is interesting since it would go against much of what people actually seem to value.

I say that because for as long as I can remember we have valued — and even fetishized — working long hours and putting off the vacation time we get far too little of. And if we, collectively, now value experiences over things, then what we need most of is time to actually, well, experience those experiences.

Sentences like, “work is so crazy right now, I’m doing like 50-plus hours a week” or “I can’t remember the last time I took two consecutive weeks off ” get bandied about as if people are bragging about how busy their lives are and how much time they spend working.

What got me thinking about this is the fact that François Legault has proudly stated that he won’t be taking any vacation this summer, and he hopes that Coalition Avenir Québec candidates will limit themselves to just a few days off in the buildup to the provincial election expected Oct. 1. It was a rallying cry of sorts, aimed at the many, many people who have come to see a skewed work-life balance as normal.

So, then, I started polling some friends of mine about how much time off they got and if they thought it was enough, albeit in very unscientific fashion, but still. The consensus was three or four weeks, with all saying they’d come to accept that as normal.

Was it expected that they work considerably more than 40 hours a week? It certainly was. But they had come to accept that as normal.

Is it really normal? There’s certainly something to be said about the fact that with wages lagging in relation to the cost of living, people feel a need to work more. And, in the words of one friend, if you aren’t the one who works the long hours, someone else will. That’s, apparently, how you get ahead.

So maybe we value experiences in theory, only to feel that we have no choice but to work and work and work some more in order to derive both self and net worth.

People supposedly value increases in paid time off more than they value increased benefits or raises, but then proceed to feel shame and guilt when asking for that same time off.

I’ve been there, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I felt guilty after taking a four-day weekend (so two days off ), and then thoughts crept in that I was shirking responsibility and hanging co-workers out to dry. I wasn’t.

The next week, I quit, partly because I realized that feeling that way about taking a few days off wasn’t healthy.

One of the things I’ve been most successful at since I started freelancing has been maintaining a healthy worklife balance, and I can attest to the fact that life is much more enjoyable and much less stressful. I haven’t come close to feeling like I’m burning out and I haven’t felt guilty about taking a day off when things just aren’t clicking. It feels natural.

Which leads me to believe that the distorted view we have — where working more than we should is “cool” — isn’t as normal as we think it is.

We’ve been working increasingly demanding hours over the years, at the expense of our actual lives, but because the change has been incremental, it goes unnoticed.

But maybe it’s time to check in on our timesheets and see just how skewed our schedules have become.

Now, I’m not advocating for anything absurd like six months paid vacation for everyone. Just that we realize that it’s OK to take some time off and that how many hours one works is not what defines oneself.

It’s easy to buy things; we’ve done it all our lives. But what seems more out of reach is the time needed to take advantage of those things, although one can still get some satisfaction from ownership.

Maybe millennials are transfixed by new experiences because they generally require a larger block of time, something that for many people remains sadly elusive.