Breaks are for Losers

I tend to think there are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to make their own lives better and those who want to make everyone else’s lives better. It’s a spectrum—it isn’t purely black-or-white—but I live way out on the “help other people” end.

Because I’m in the top one percent of that side, I honestly don’t understand the folks whose main goal is improving only themselves. They seem stuck in a place where their lives lack meaning, so all the meaning they do find ends up circling back to them.

There’s plenty of content celebrating that mindset: lavish vacations, early retirement, endless lifestyle upgrades. But for someone who genuinely wants to spend life improving other people’s lives, those ideas feel foreign. If I’m dedicated to helping others, I’m not going to stop—that would be ridiculous. That’s why retirement has never made sense to me. You want to stop working? That’s hilarious.

Those kinds of breaks are for losers—people happy to sit on a beach and get old.

But there’s another kind of “break,” and it’s completely different. It’s about shifting modes so you can become better at serving others and improving the world. I used to believe you had to be working all the time, and I still think you should—but working on what?

Sometimes the smartest move is to hop on a plane, sit by a lake, and think through your mistakes. Spend hours writing, figuring out the role you play in certain situations, mapping strategy, and asking how you can make the world better. A lot of this “work” doesn’t look like work, yet it’s critical for creating big, meaningful things.

It’s a spectrum too. Maybe you spend 20 percent of your time on deep internal work—reflection, health, recovery—and 80 percent on execution. It’s not all-or-nothing; you turn certain parts of yourself on and off so the rest can run hotter.

You can even frame it that way to others: I need two days off this week so I can think through what’s happening in my life. It’s a reframing of rest into growth.

Elite athletes understand this perfectly. They obsess over rest days, diet, and every other recovery component because that recovery is sometimes as important—if not more—than the training itself.

So yes, aimless, escapist breaks are for losers. Purposeful breaks—ones that sharpen your thinking and expand your capacity to help—are part of the mission.