Is summer break actually overrated?

On schooldays, we dream of the endless stretch of holiday freedom. But is there a thing as too much freedom?

As summer break drew to a close, reality started to kick in and back to school preparations began. The vacation we had been looking forward to the whole year had just gone by in a flash, leaving us feeling like we did nearly nothing in the time we had promised to do everything. The Cox’s Bazar trips, the endless sleepovers, and the late-night gaming plans were all just conversation starters that never came to life, which made me wonder, "Is summer break actually overrated?”

There’s nothing more depressing than the feeling of guilt at 7pm on a weekend, feeling like I wasted the day doing nothing. Except, it feels much worse during an actual vacation - ramping up that guilt and making it way worse than it usually is. Contrast that to a bright sunny afternoon after school, riding cycles back home with all my friends. I feel like I’ve done enough work for the day and can actually allow myself to enjoy the moment. With so much free time in hand, even if I spend half the day doing activities, it feels like I'm bored for the other half. The day just gets away from me and I’m left feeling like I couldn’t take full advantage of it when I could do so much more.

This is the paradox of freedom - with so much free time for fun comes so much free time to waste. Every plan just ends up becoming shunted into tomorrow because we have so much time to spare. And we end up doing nothing. You rot the whole day, thinking that it hasn’t even started yet. Eventually, you realise the freedom you were excited about came without the urgency that powered you through the day.

To me, nothing hits harder than the slow feeling of an exam creeping up on the horizon to give every fun activity an additional jolt of adrenaline. Little compares to scrolling reels for hours on end the night before an exam, as I feel like I’m going to fail, but doing it anyways, the dopamine surging through my body. It’s like nothing else I can think of. That pressure makes every small distraction taste better. Which is probably why summer break, with its endless, shapeless hours, never quite feels the same.