Of Vacation Guilt, Self-Employment, and Work Ethic

August 5, 2019 – 7:55 pm CST

This past week, I took a vacation to Perdido Key, Florida. It was — in every sense of the phrase — a wonderful vacation. The weather was pretty much perfect the whole time, I was surrounded by good company and entertainment, and it was pretty much all-expenses paid. So my question is: why did I feel a sense of guilt for enjoying my vacation?

Ever since I graduated from college, I’ve had this idea in my head that I have to be working on something. Anything. I mean, after all that’s what you do after you graduate from school — you work. You find a career, earn a living, and move forward with your life. So it just seemed logical to me.

However, I did want (and in all honesty desperately need) some time off. I had been going to college for four years straight to achieve my bachelors in communication. I maintained a great GPA, never really slacked off too bad, and stayed serious with my studies (sorry for the humble brag, but what can I say — I’m proud). A huge reason I stayed on top of my studies though, was because I felt like I owed it to not only me but the people who helped get me there in the first place. I didn’t want to waste an opportunity not everyone is fortunate enough to have.

Sure, I would enjoy my breaks between semesters whenever I could, but school was always in the back of my mind for one reason or another. Whether that’s the norm for other students I can’t say, but I do know that it stayed true for me throughout my college career. However, after I graduated I promised myself that I would take some time to enjoy being free from deadlines and the rigid education system that I had been in for pretty much my entire life. Even if it was for just a couple of months.

So naturally, once I graduated it felt pretty weird to be completely…free. I didn’t have class to go to Monday through Thursday and no absolute deadlines to meet — I was unequivocally free to do what I wanted to do. For basically the first time ever. And it was — and still is — incredibly overwhelming.

I always imagined that self-employment was a dream come true. No boss to see to, no rigid schedule to follow, and much more personal freedom to work the way you want to. But it’s a lot more stressful than that. While I by no means consider myself totally self-employed or independent, I imagine that doing the work I am doing now is at least somewhat akin to it. Just a taste of what self-employment must be like. Yet, this freedom to create what I want, to do what I want, to work on what I’m passionate about…while it is incredibly freeing it also comes with some pretty high levels of stress.

As someone who always has some future goal in mind to work towards, having no rigid structure or deadlines to meet means that I have to create my own. I won’t speak for everyone who’s independent or self employed here, but I’m pretty strict with myself and how I view my work ethic. I loathe the feeling of being lazy or taking it easy. I didn’t used to be this way — as a kid I would prefer nothing more than spending the day doing absolutely nothing. While I still enjoy having free time I am constantly fighting with myself on how to balance free time and my work, especially now that I’m creating things independently.

This brings me back to how I started my post: why did I feel a sense of guilt for enjoying my vacation this past weekend? Hopefully those six paragraphs in-between helped to somewhat answer the question or give some context.

As I wondered about this strange feeling, I started to do some research. Low and behold, the term “vacation guilt” is a real thing that is not mutually exclusive to me! Imagine that. However, while it’s a term that has been coined already, it’s an extremely loose term. From my somewhat brief research, it doesn’t seem like there are a lot of professional or qualified research done on the topic. Which is totally fine, because in all honesty I’m not sure what else I was expecting. After all, how else can you diagnose or pinpoint a general feeling like guilt?

However, a small ray of sunshine in this brief stint of unsuccessful research has showcased a few things to me. For one, I’m not alone in this strange feeling of guilt that comes with taking some time off from work. It shouldn’t be surprising at this point to know that I’m not some unique butterfly who only experiences rare and isolated feelings considering how often I think that way, but here I am — still somewhat surprised.

Another thing that was both reassuring and somewhat terrifying was learning that people who are full-time employees at large-scale companies can also experience this same feeling. So even a rigid structure, boss to answer to, and deadlines to meet don’t guarantee guilt-free vacations. So that’s neat.

Even after reading article after article and blog post after blog post, my big question still remains: how do I deal with this. Unfortunately, I think the fact that I haven’t found a sure-fire, straightforward answer says much more than one could probably ever tell me.

I’ve come to believe there is no way to absolutely and entirely deal with vacation guilt.

You can work all you want beforehand and still feel like it wasn’t enough. You can work while on vacation and feel like it amounted to nothing or wasn’t worthwhile. You can throw yourself headfirst into work after getting back and then feel like you just wasted a vacation — or in my case just feel guilty about it.

Vacation guilt seems like something you just have to learn to deal with or come to terms with. Find what works best for you. Sure, there a whole smorgasbord of tips, tricks, and lists out there by people who’ve experience that same feeling. Maybe they help — maybe they don’t.

All I know for sure is that writing this article and explaining my line of thinking has helped lessen that feeling of guilt for me, if only a little. But hey, a start’s a start.