Reasons to Take a Break

Because when you take a break, time stops being expensive. It becomes invaluable.

You stop worrying about the time you have left and starting thinking about the time you have. To play an instrument or walk around the park. To learn the things you’ve always wanted to learn. To spend time with people who make you happy—not just people who help you earn money.

The funny thing about breaks is, you remember what is important to you in the middle of nothing, doing nothing.

For the first time in a while, you look at the bigger picture. You realise that you love what you do, or that you don’t. You search the horizon for where the sun rises, and you follow it. So you make goals for yourself, figuring out the why’s and how’s.

When you take a break, your soul exhales for the first time in a while.

It’s called ma in Japanese—negative space. A drawn breath in the rushing torrent. A drop of order inside chaos, yin and yang. Such that makes life all the more meaningful.

Breaks are symbiotic with productivity.

To design thinkers, there is a tool called reframing. It means thinking about a problem in a new way. Here, I’ll show you.

An escalator breaks down in a bustling metropolis. Sure, fixing it is a direct solution to the problem, but who knows how long it will take? And how many will complain in the meantime?

Reframe: make stair climbing fun. Add graffiti or piano steps.

A person breaks down in their inescapable monotony. The direct solution screams change your job.

Reframing says change something else. Rediscover a hobby. Actually have a hobby. Surround yourself with good people and be a better person. Happiness ceases to exist when you are miserable to others.

And take a break.