Two Weeks Off

NOTE: this post was edited after the original writing, mostly to fix syntax and to do minor rewording. The content is the same as originally intended.

I am writing this blog post in an hotel room in San Francisco with my phone since I don’t have a computer with me. This is day 7 of my trip without a computer. The only real tech things I have with me are my camera and my phone which I’m mostly using as navigator and to check restaurants recommendations. My phone has no Facebook, I don’t check Twitter during the day and I don’t have access to my work email address. Today is also the day I started having a really weird feeling: I feel that this vacation is lasting a really long time (but it’s only seven days till now) and I still have another week to go. I am really enjoying it, but it’s the first time ever in my life I have this weird feeling. I think about this feeling and I struggle to understand what it means and where it comes from… but I have an idea.

Before starting this trip I realised that this is the first time I am without a computer for longer than 5 days since 2007. To give some additional context, I bought my first laptop in 2008, I relied on desktop computers only before that, so it’s my first long-ish computerless trip ever in my laptop life. In the last 10 years, I mostly did only short trips or traveled with my laptop. This time however I am completely off from any productive setup and I believe that this is what makes me feel weird. I am detached from work, from what is happening on GitHub and from my team. Those things are a passion for me, something I never really get a complete rest from. This time though is really different, I am completely detached from tech and my brain wants some of it. It wants to feel smart (not that I am, but at least it wants to try), to feel it is producing something that is contributing to my job and making efforts towards some sort of goal. But this is not what I am doing these 2 weeks. This time is about not being productive, seeing places, thinking. This is what work (and basically anything else you do really often) does to you after some years. Work is addictive and it makes you dependent on it, not only because of the money you get out of it. Work is something you need to feel satisfied and part of the society. All of this is why taking breaks, even long ones, is so important. You need different perspectives, to remember why you do what you do and who you are. Time off tells you once more that real life comes first. Time off teaches you that you are part of something bigger than your workplace. Time off tells you that you need to be okay with you more that you are with you while being in front of a computer.