WEBVTT - Vacation Tribulation 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.520 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.280 My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie, you're 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.919 looking forward to vacation. I am. I love a good vacation. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:25.960 To good vacation, you know, just really really recharges you. Yeah, 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.400 and I've been thinking about I mean, it's only May 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.400 right in my My vacation is not until July, and 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:33.559 I like every couple of days, I just sit there 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.519 and think, yes, one day I will be going on 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.480 you vacation. Now, A lot of people don't know this, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:45.800 but compulsory vacation in the United States was almost a thing. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.440 Uh William Howard taft In he proposed giving American workers 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.880 two to three months of vacation every year. Can you imagine? 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.600 I really cannot imagine how that would work, but it 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.320 would get speaking from the vantage point of today's modern 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.880 vacation adverse culture, Yeah, particularly in the United States. You 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.920 hear that, you know, two to three months in nineteen ten, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.720 and you sort of wonder what Americans would be like 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.280 if they had that today, how that would change the culture. Um, 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.840 of course this brings up this idea of a rather 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.440 question when did humans start vacationing in earnest And we 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.720 can't say, uh, this exact date, we can't point to it. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.399 But we have a couple of clues because, according to 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:36.560 psychologist Jessica to Bloom, ancient hieroglyphic graffiti found engraved into 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.200 the walls of the Pyramid of Jos their state quote 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.280 Hand and his brother have been here to make an 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:50.720 excursion and enjoy Memphis. These hieroglyphics date back to two 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.640 thousand years ago. I'm picturing Uma with their Rick Steve's 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.280 travel backpacks standing in ancient Egypt. I love that they 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.920 just put a little graffiti to pyramid, like, you know, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.480 a sort of Julie was here, Robert was here. I 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.280 was like, hey, we were here, we were visiting from Memphis. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.320 That was a vacation blogging of the day, indeed, very 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.560 short and to the point. Uh. The etymological origin of 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.680 the word vacation also dates back to the time of 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.520 the Roman Empire and stems from the Latin word of 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.880 the kato, which means being free from being at leisure, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.080 having time for and Yet it wasn't until the twentieth 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:33.320 century that some nations began to recognize and institutionalize vacations. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.760 All right, So where are we now in terms of 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:43.400 vacation appreciation and the vacation deprivation. Well, there's a two 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.960 thousand thirteen survey that came out that was handled by 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:50.600 Expedient and they looked at different countries, different cultures to see, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.919 all right, who's who's really maxing out on their available vacation, 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.560 who's pulling back, who has the most available, etcetera. And 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.120 they found that the average Japanese worker gets thirteen days 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.800 off each year but only takes five UM on the end. Uh. 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.399 In a similar vein South Koreans UH get an average 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.560 of nineteen days off but only takes seven. So that's 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.000 kind of like the low end of of taking advantage 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.720 of your vacation in the modern world. Uh. Here in America, 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.840 Americans tend to get twelve days off a year on average. 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.000 Uh they'll take tenidate again on average, while Mexicans get 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.840 fourteen days of vacation and only take keen. So we 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.360 haven't really hit in upon any of the real vacation 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.840 levers yet. For that, by and large, you have to 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.000 go to Europe because Europeans in general tend to score 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.400 twenty five to thirty vacation days a year um, and 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.960 among the European nations, the French and Spanish tend to 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.560 take the full thirty available to them. Germans tend to 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.320 take only twenty eight. And for another high vacation country, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.720 you have to travel across the ocean to Brazil, where 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.000 they follow suit and generally take the full three. Wow, 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.920 that's very leisurely beautiful. Top of the spectrum Brazil, Spain, 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.800 France and Germany, bottom South Korea and Japan. Now I 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:10.680 know we alluded to this, but the US is the 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:15.000 only advanced economy with no national vacation policy, and one 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.799 in four workers have no paid vacation at all, which 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.800 makes you wonder, are we just really addicted and obsessed 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.680 with work or is the structure just not there to 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.000 support vacationing well. Americans tend to put more hours in 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.720 during so called leisure hours at night and on weekends, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:35.760 pointing to this idea that we might be sort of 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.240 addicted to our work. And economists Don hammer Mesh and 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.400 Elena san Connelli published their findings on American work habits 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.840 in two thousand and fourteen, and they found that in 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.720 a typical weeknight, a quarter of US employees did some 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.640 kind of work between ten at night and six in 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:57.320 the morning. Wow. Yeah, it seems very hardcore. And on 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.200 the weekends, one in three workers in the u US 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.320 we're on the job. Now, you can compare that to 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.320 one in five in France, Germany in the Netherlands. So 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.800 what happens when you take these hard working Americans and 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.440 you strong arm them into something called deliberate periodic rest, Well, 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.760 they don't like it. And we know this because there's 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.479 a four year study by Leslie Purlow of the Harvard 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.880 Business School and her colleagues who tracked the work habits 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:29.280 of employees at the Boston Consulting Group. And in one experiment, 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.279 each of five consultants on a team took a break 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.320 from work one day a week. That's kind of a 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.120 big deal, right, Um, that's that's a significant chunk of 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.119 your work week. And then in a second experiment, every 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:45.159 member of a team scheduled one weekly night of uninterrupted 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.120 personal time, even though they were accustomed to working from 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.240 home in the evening, so not even checking your email, right, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.599 So understandably, people in this experiment they felt a little 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.279 bit annoyed by this, right, because their routines had been 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.800 disrupted and they felt like they might get behind or 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.599 they would be out of the loop. And this is 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.360 the thing though, After five months, employees experimenting with deliberate 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.479 periodic rest were more satisfied with their jobs, more likely 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.080 to envision a long term future of the company, and 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.599 more content with their work, left balance and prouder of 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.080 their accomplishments. They just had to have it forced upon them, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.320 like essentially tazed in the hallway and their their work 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.880 email removed from their phone exactly, and it's like her, 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.640 now now you must rest, mandatory rest. But this mandatory 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.960 rust really helped them to reset their minds. And in 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.560 order to do that, you have to get to something 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:43.159 called the default mode network. Yeah, the default mode network. 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.880 And we've talked about this before in previous podcasts. I 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.800 think it came up especially during the scientists in the 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:53.080 Shaman episodes. We did uh dealing with the psychedelics, But 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.840 essentially it boils down to this the stream of human consciouness. Right, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.200 that's the analogy we tend to to to use. But 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.719 if we were to use the more fluid dynamic e term, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.120 it's not a single stream, but it's more like an 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.160 elaborate convergence of currents and bodies. Then, even when we're resting, 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.280 there's a lot of activity going on. Uh. In fact, 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.680 we've known since the early twentieth century that there's actually 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.160 a considerable amount of activity in the resting brain. Now, granted, 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.200 a lot of that is simply your brain maintaining unconscious 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.320 control of the of the body spaceship, but a lot 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.400 of stuff is going on under the hood. Um, go 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.440 back to that's when a team of neuroscientists led by 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.840 Marcus Roushell of Washington University in St. Louis discovered that 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:42.000 the brain constantly demands of all the energy the body produces. 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.440 And if you really need to put your thinking cap 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.840 on for something, you know, to do your taxes or 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.120 you know, try and figure out what the tip is 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.040 that at a restaurant, Um anything math for me? I 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:58.040 guess um, you're only gonna add five on top of that. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.880 It's kind of like looking into the process the section 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.520 of the window task manager, right, you suddenly see all 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.480 these different things going on, and you're wondering, well, what's 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 using all of the resources of the computer. Well, um. 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.880 In this research, they also noted that a certain set 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:16.120 of scattered brain regions quieted down during serious contemplation. So 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.080 you're put on the thinking cap and these sections go quiet, 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.800 but then they crank back up when the patient's mind 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.920 is just idly wandering and daydreaming. Uh. And they were 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.240 engaged in coordinated communication with one another, So scientists can 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.760 to label this day dreaming chatter as the default mode network, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.320 though we now know that it's just one of at 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:41.120 least five different resting state networks that are involved in vision, hearing, movement, attention, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.720 and memory. So it's in this state that you know, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.199 on a good day, you're you know, you're setting there, 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.200 you're just thinking idly. Your thoughts are kind of doing 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.800 their own thing, and you're you know, thinking about something 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.160 you're excited about in the future. You're thinking about, you know, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.920 some pleasant memory in the past or something you saw 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.640 on TV. Right general, you know, mundane or ales and stuff. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.600 But then also on a bad day, this is where 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.520 the brain is gnawing on itself, right, you're worrying over work, stress, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.760 You're it's bashing us in the face with embarrassing or 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.080 or downright traumatic memories. From the past. So it's a 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.880 place of introspection, place of depressive thoughts and uh, it's 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.560 a place of endless ego at tinkering with the story 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.920 narrative that we build around our lives. And one of 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.760 the reasons why it's so important to recharge and to 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.480 try to to get into that default mode network in 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.200 a positive way is because that's when you do that 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.800 sort of mind wandering again. And you would pointed out 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.360 your mind is going to take up twenty percent of 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.120 resources no matter what it's doing, right, so if you're 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:45.600 meditating or if you're taking a test, maybe test, but 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.400 so you when you get into the default mode network 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.760 and you allow the mind chatter too dim and just 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.960 kind of meander, well, that's when you get some really 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.480 good stuff going on. And this is from Fairesh Chabra 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.040 from Scientific American and his article why your brain needs 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:07.559 more downtime. He says, while mind wandering, we replay conversations 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.720 that we had earlier that day, rewriting our verbal blenders 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.800 as a way of learning to avoid them in the future. 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.920 So it's kind of a safe space, um to revisit 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.840 some of those and not in a negative way. We 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.160 shuffle through all those neglected mental post it notes listing 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.680 half finished projects, and we moll over the aspects of 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:30.000 our lives with which we are most dissatisfied, searching for solutions. 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.800 We sink into scenes from childhood and catapult ourselves into 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.040 different hypothetical futures, and we subject ourselves to a kind 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:41.040 of moral performance review, questioning how we have treated others lately. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.160 These moments of introspection are also one way we form 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.600 a sense of self, which is essentially a story we 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:52.680 continually tell ourselves. So that's one of the reasons why 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.240 we have to have that time away from our work, 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.400 so that our brains can actually dwell on solutions, dwell 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.880 on how who improve ourselves, and also create a better 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.840 sense of self. And to illustrate this point that our 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.559 brains need to take advantage of every bit of downtime 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.400 that they can get, consider this two thousand and twelve 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.920 study about blinking. I feel like I've been talking about 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:19.080 blinking a lot lately. It's from to Mommy Nicano of 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.120 Osaka University, who recorded electrical impulses in people's brains as 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.160 they watched clips of British comedian Missed Being and you 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.160 found that the brain can engage in the default mode 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.760 network and the blink of an eye literally when you 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:39.560 blink your eyes, the default mode network comes alive. And uh, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.920 the idea is that the brain is trying to catch 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.400 its breath, even if it's just for that the fraction 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.000 of a second and blinking. And so when you think 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.240 about vacation, it turns out that it's just the right 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.920 kind of distraction for the default mode network, and it's 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.760 really kind of like an extended blink for the mind. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.160 I can also see though, with if someone as a 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.319 particularly busy brain, they might they it might almost be 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.080 a little apprehensive about going on the vacation because it 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.120 brings to mind just setting on the beach, like next 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.720 to your brain in a beach chair, and your brain 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.720 is just like, hey, what's up, let's talk about about stuff. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.600 You know, it's like a fight right now. I'm trying 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.920 to relax here. I don't want to talk about stuff 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.520 all right. So what are some of the general benefits 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.360 of vacation. Some of these are no brainers, no pun intended, 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.920 but but just to roll through them. Uh, vacations revitalize 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.600 our mind and body by distancing us from our job 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.280 related stress. Um. I with a few times that I've 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.400 traveled essentially to the other side of the planet. I 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.200 like to think of it in terms of I'm actually 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.199 placing the center of the Earth between me and anything 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.000 that could conceivably stress me out, you know, So it's 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:54.280 like a nice earth barrier there. Um. Also, vacations allow 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.559 us to drop into a new place, a new culture, 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.520 surrounded by new people, new set of experiences, and a 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.880 new environment for our mind to chew over. So suddenly 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.600 you have all of this brand new stuff, be it 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.440 you know, pleasant brand new stuff like the wonderful tourist 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.240 attraction you're at, or the more negative stuff like the 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.719 tourists that are with you at the tourist attraction that 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.800 you've been looking forward to. Uh. And of course all 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.320 the newness can generate new ideas and thoughts. And we 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.720 also tend to kick forced concentration to the curb side, 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.400 so by and larger going on vacation, there's not gonna 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.160 be any crunch time. We're like, all right, I really 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.280 got to figure this out, unless it's you know, getting 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.280 around town in a far in metropolis. And finally, when 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.240 you go on vacation, hopefully, hopefully you can get a 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.720 decent night's sleep and maybe grab a nap or two. 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.960 That's what I was thinking, the allusive sleep that we 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.400 all are pursuing. You finally get a taste of that, 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.600 and that makes such a big difference. Let's take a 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:55.720 quick break and when we get back, we'll talk about 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:09.800 something called time poverty. All right, we're back. Yes, we're 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.480 talking about vacation and now time poverty, which actually doesn't 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.480 have anything to do with doctor who Nope. Ever since 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.559 the clock was first used to synchronize labor in the 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.640 eighteenth century, time has been understood in relation to money. 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.880 So we started to put time into three different buckets. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.480 Here we have the wasting, the saving, and the using. 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.360 And as the industrial revolution gave way to the technological revolution, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.280 we've seen a decrease in the amount of time it 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.480 takes to do things. So just even the most wrote 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.400 things like doing your laundry or getting from you know, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.240 place A to B, none of this stuff is quite 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.880 as involved as it used to be. And so as 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.200 a result, paradoxically, we have more time on our hands, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.400 and yet we feel as though we don't have enough time. 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.640 And part of that is because we keep cramming it 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.800 with stuff to do, because there's this idea of at, uh, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.840 the more time you have, the more you should jam 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:07.000 in some work because time is money. Yeah, I mean 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.520 is interesting to think about, how you know often you'll 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.960 find yourself in a situation where you did an hour's 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:13.760 worth of work and you washed all the clothes in 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.280 the house. And these two things were for the longest 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.080 stretch of human history, um could not be done at 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.760 the same time. Right. You ate food that you didn't 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.880 have to grow right and harvest um. So this idea 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:28.520 this time is money, we don't have enough of it 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.080 is a concept known as time poverty. And in the 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.680 article by Jenny Dearborn Why is Everyone so Busy? In 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.400 The Economist, she says, quote, this makes time, that frustratingly finite, 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:45.840 unrenewable resource, feel more precious. And as a result of time, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.080 or rather a lack of it, it becomes this kind 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.080 of status symbol. And she says that Daniel Hemmermash, who 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:56.400 we mentioned earlier, calls this a yuppie cavetch. This ethos 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.080 that busier is better. And if you look at an 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.840 analysis of international time stress data, Hammermish found that complaints 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:10.800 about insufficient time come disproportionately from well off families, even 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:15.400 after he controlled for holding constant hours spent working at 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.240 jobs at at the home. So the bigger the paycheck, 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.360 the more anxiety there was about time in this kind 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.800 of time poverty communication about it moreover. A two thousand 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.040 and eleven pull from Gallop concluded quote, the more cash 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.520 rich working Americans are, the more time poor they feel. 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.240 And it's this kind of it almost kind of builds 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:43.200 into this work macho is m And the Harvard Business 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.800 Review had an interesting article about this, and it's called 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:53.640 extreme Jobs Societea that really high performing people in very 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:58.040 lucrative jobs are these warriors and they're putting, you know, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.960 seventy plus hours of work per week in and in 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.600 the article they say it's like they're trying to prove 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:09.320 their worth. It's akin to going up against the elements. Yeah, 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.040 I mean it sounds in more extreme cases, less like 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.280 work macho is um and more like work masochism. You know, 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.600 as if you're trying to tell your employer, look at me, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.760 I hate myself. This is the kind of employer you 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:23.760 want on your team, because I would just bleed all 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.200 over the place for you. Yeah, I will cancel my vacations. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.119 I'll only take half of my vacation days. And we 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.000 mentioned all this because we want to try to set 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:37.560 up the conditions that are here, the corporate culture that's 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.040 at play, that doesn't say, hey, please take a boatload 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.919 of vacation days. And then this kind of warrior perception 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:51.120 of people who are um over compensating, maybe overworking their hours. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.879 So then the question becomes, well, what happens when we 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.840 finally get to take a vacation, well leading up to it, 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.600 and that's that's a big thing too, is there's the 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.080 lead up to the vacation, the launch towards the vacation 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.439 and uh, and it affects the way that we perceive time. 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:09.760 The easy analogy here is do you think back to 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:11.280 you when you were a kid, right, and you're in 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.040 the lead up to Christmas and it just seems to 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.280 take forever and ever because it's the thing you want 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.720 most in the world, right, Um, But when you of course, 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.359 when you're grown up, it's just another two months between uh, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:27.639 you know, between Halloween and in Christmas. But vacation is 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.240 kind of the adult version of this. Uh you know, 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.600 you have this this destination in time that you're looking 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.240 forward to. But it's not just the temporal distance here, 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.520 but also the geographic distance that plays into all of this. Uh. 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.680 There's a two thousand and twelve study that was publishing 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.560 the Journal of Consumer Research, and they actually found that 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.800 consumer decision making is affected by the relationship between time 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.880 and spatial distance. So in the study, the authors asked 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.480 test savors to imagine visiting a post office today and 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.959 a bookstore three months from now. Okay now. Sometimes, depending 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.920 on on the test study, sometimes the distance between these 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.640 two places is short, Okay, the bookstorce is right around 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.159 the corner. Other times it's a longer distance. Maybe the 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.840 bookstore is across town or in another city, another state. 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.440 So the greater the distance between you and your vacation destination, uh, 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.879 then the longer it seems to take, the slower time 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.119 seems to pass between now and then. And in the 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.440 same study, they also found that test subjects who imagined 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.200 retiring far away, uh, you know, retiring down in Florida 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.879 when you're living up in Minnesota. Uh, they felt like 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.800 the retirement was also further away in time. So the 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:40.760 key here for the purposes of the study. Of course 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.719 we're business related and that spatial distances can change your 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.960 perception of future time and make you impatient. Uh. But 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.600 the breakdown for vacation is pretty clear. The more of 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.080 a destination vacation you have planned, the more it's going 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.200 to cause the time leading up to it to track. 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.040 So that that's a bit of a bummer, right, because 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.280 you're really side of let's say that you're going to 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.200 China and we we're here in Atlanta, so you're that's 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.320 that's quite a distance. So you're sitting there kind of 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.119 nailbodding for you know, a couple of months waiting for 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.520 that moment. But then again, um, you get to experience 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.560 life longer, like maybe you actually live a little longer 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.920 by stretching it out. I don't know, that's nice. No. Um, 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.879 the same sort of mind time happens while you're taking 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.719 vacation and then when you reflect on that vacation afterward. 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.959 So again, when we talk about time, we usually think 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.840 about it in more linear terms and and highly strettured, right, 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.800 But in on side of our minds, it becomes a 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.560 bit of a jumble. Um. And this is something that's 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:48.440 psychologist and BBC broadcaster Claudia Hammond examined. She calls this 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.560 the holiday paradox. In her book Time Work, she writes, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.199 quote that the paradox is the contradictory feeling that a 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.000 good holiday or vacation for US Americans whizzes by. Yeah, 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.800 it feels long when you look back. And she says 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.639 the reason for this is that, say, in any given 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.119 time period, maybe two weeks um, the average person would 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:15.560 accumulate something like six to nine new memories because so 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.360 much of what we do is routine. Is routine, right, 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.680 is the wrote stuff that we do day after day. Um, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.480 there's not much out of the ordinary. But she said 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.480 that on vacation we can build up that number of 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.760 memories in a single day because everything we experience is new, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.800 meaning that when we look back it will seem to 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.480 have lasted much longer than it really did. And so 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.440 that's where you get this fast, slow paradox. While you're 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.160 experiencing the vacation in a new place, it all feels 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.960 like it's whizzing by. But then afterwards you get to 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:52.320 linger on all those new memories that are made. And 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.320 if you think of yourself and your brain is this uh, 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.760 is it just a collection of memories. Not taking vacation 0:21:59.920 --> 0:22:02.920 or not being able to take vacation. Uh, you're really 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:08.919 short changing yourself. You're short changing this flood of memories 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.840 that makes up who you are. Well, that is exactly 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.240 what Farish Chabre was touching on in that Scientific American 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:18.960 article when he said that that mind wandering, those moments 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.720 of introspection are one way that we form a sense 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:26.160 of self. So you're right, you're you're shortcutting yourself out 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.359 of these moments that really add to, uh, this sort 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:36.120 of dictionary of self, this reference book of self. Now 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.280 to return to that that lead up to vacation, right, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.240 the months and months that that occur before you actually 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.159 get to take the trip. Uh, there's some interesting a 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.400 science surrounding the idea that fantasizing about vacation can lead 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.560 to poor decisions. And of course we all fantasize about vacations. Uh. 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:55.720 And then they're kind of two levels. Right, there's like 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.800 the early stage where you think, hey, maybe I should 0:22:57.840 --> 0:22:59.320 go to Hawaii. What would that be would be? What 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:01.880 would that be like? Without thinking about how much it's 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.680 gonna cost or how I'm gonna get there, or when 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.440 it's gonna work best for my work schedule, that sort 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:09.560 of thing. And then there's when you actually boil down 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:11.879