Why you need a post-vacation break (it's not just exhaustion)
As machines get better at summarizing our lives, the human job of deciding what experiences mean becomes more important.
I wheeled my suitcase to the middle of the living room and just sat there for 10 minutes.
We’d just returned from visiting relatives overseas.
My husband and I were traveling with our children (2 and 8 years old).
Traveling is tiring.
Traveling with kids drains you at a whole different level.
But as I sat there, it wasn’t just the physical exhaustion that stopped me.
I felt like I’d just gotten off a conveyor belt of catching up on family drama, too much eating, fascinating places, toddler meltdowns, and immigration lines.
There was so much in my head: Scenes, fragments of conversations, small moments.
But what did it all add up to?
The mind is a meaning-making machine
We often mistake our need for “a break after the break” as simple tiredness that sleep can solve.
What’s also needed is time to process what we’ve experienced.
This is why the mind is often described as a meaning-making machine.
As we go through life, we don’t simply observe events and receive data like a computer.
The brain naturally organizes this information as stories in our heads.
The narrative we create helps us form ideas about:
Who we are
What we believe to be true about the world
What matters to us
But the pace of modern life makes this process harder.
The “what just happened?” exhaustion
We’re always rushing from one experience to the next:
Trips, projects, celebrations, deadlines.
Each one fills our days with activity and leaves little space to think about what any of it means.
The draw to make meaning often feels strongest after something big.
Holidays, major work projects, and personal milestones.
But again, even after the major things, we’re quickly ushered back to the cycle of emails, laundry, phone scrolling, and commutes.
The cycle of autopilot living continues.
That's when the exhaustion sets in.
As you keep putting off meaning-making, "life” becomes a pile of information and experiences that don’t make sense.
Like a growing heap of puzzle pieces that never get pieced together.
But that’s not the end.
