Sanity Check

I'm writing this from our motel room as I look out the window at the ocean.

Many people have criticised us for going on a week long vacation to the beach when they know we are trying to pay back debts and save for a house. To them, and any else who wonder why we would take such an expensive trip when that money could be going somewhere more useful: if you've been focused on something for a long while, especially something tiring, like debt repayment, you need to take a break from time to time. You need to take a sanity check to keep you focused and keep you from burning out. This vacation is such a check.

As I sit here, my wife reading, the waves crashing outside, I can feel my energy, and my resolve, returning, rebuilding, and restoring. When we return in a week, we will all be the better for it, and our efforts towards repayment, preparing and saving redoubling. The weariness has been fading from our faces, and we find ourselves telling the other We needed this.

If you find yourself getting burnt out, take a sanity check; not so much that it works against what you have worked so hard to do, but enough that you can find your stride again, and reset the pace you once kept.