Holiday season and the battle between occupation and acceptance

School is well and truly out, and summer holiday season is here. This can be unsettling in countless ways: the regular weekly routine faces upheaval, there are new childcare issues to manage, and yet there is still work to worry about. It sharpens the focus on a daily mental health conflict: occupation versus acceptance. By occupation, here I mean doing, how we practically occupy ourselves. The summer holiday period reminds us of the need for rest, for a circuit-breaker, a change of scenery, the need for difference, change, the need to step back and slow down.

Such radical adjustment can be hard. It can take a day or three to acclimatise to a different pace and place and way of doing things. This can be in part due to our own screen addictions and compulsive inbox-checking. Due to the fact that technology has made mental and physical disconnection from work life a whole lot harder. Due, in short, to our relationship with occupation and how we busy ourselves. Holidays illuminate the most difficult of tipping scales which we strive to balance across our whole lives. On the one side there is occupation, and on the other there is acceptance. First, let’s look at occupation.

The Human Need For Occupation There is a human need for occupation, for purpose, for generativity or productivity -- that likely exists outside of financial incentive. We like to be fully occupied and immersed in the graft of doing something worthwhile, and feeling busy. It makes us feel valued and worthy. It can be wonderfully distracting from life’s other inevitable struggles and difficulties. And to be under-occupied, underemployed, unemployed, can feel deeply painful. This is connected with the popular cultural value placed on working fiercely hard, potentially at the cost of everything else. Work ethic, overtime, burning the midnight oil, putting in the hours: these are all considered virtuous and sometimes even necessary to survival or success. It can be deeply shaming not to work hard, to be called Lazy. This pursuit and focus on industry means that we don’t quite know how to function when we are not working, when we are asked to stop looking at our phones. That instinctive thought-pattern or muscle memory remains dominant. We need occupation. We can't be bored.

This can create tension against the concept of a holiday: of levity, fun, joy, adventure, lighter spirits, and sometimes boredom. Of acceptance.

The Human Need For Acceptance Life without acceptance is a brutal battle. That inner critic never stops. You never believe you are working hard enough, or you are good enough. The figures could always be improved. You always want more and better. There is always something else you could or should be doing. Which is true. There is, and always will be something else you could be doing. But there has to be a time when we pause, tame this internal beast, and exhale. Burnout and breakdown await if there isn’t. We might struggle to figure out when that time to pause is, without holiday seasons punctuating the calendar. And even with holiday seasons punctuating the calendar, it can be a struggle. You are always needed and vital and responsible for your business. Holidays oblige us to relax as we create physical and mental distance from the norm. There is a  need for acceptance of our achievements and ourselves, an appreciation of it. We’re ok, we’re doing ok. This is all right. There’s encouragement to simply exist, away from any judgement, measurement or validation. We can safely play, experiment, try new things, and attempt to be completely present in the company of loved ones. We are safe to accept things as they are. We could remember that we don’t have to take that incoming call. They know we’re away and the business will not collapse in our absence. We are not responsible for everything and we can trust in others. We could catch ourselves when our finger hovers over the email app. We could suspend the instinct to snap a new photo every few minutes. We could be ok with there not being a detailed plan for the day’s activities. We could remember our bubble, outside the hamster wheel of external validation, productivity, generativity, profitability. We can repress occupation and submit to the acceptance of ourselves, those around us, and their acceptance of us and all our flaws. Balance Is Not Easy

Of course, balancing occupation and acceptance is not easy, whether at home or on holiday. For one thing, childcare and family life can sometimes feel insanely boring and frustrating and claustrophobic. (There, I said it. Childcare can feel like every single emotion there is, as can any relationship).

For another thing, we have long been programmed and trained by our smartphones in day-to-day habits that we feel we need, and that we feel we must continue every day. We will almost certainly fail at times, and that's fine too.

However, we can try at this. We can push ourselves that bit harder to disconnect, to say no, to just leave that thing in another room, to let someone else decide where to go, to accept. And we could be pleasantly surprised.