**"The Permission Slip I Forgot to Sign"**
It’s 9:02 AM in Portland, and I’m staring at a half-written blog post from last night titled “Why I’m Taking a Week Off.” The cursor is blinking. My coffee is cold. And I just realized something ridiculous—I’ve been negotiating with myself about rest like it’s a PR that needs approval.
The Backstory
After three straight weeks of:
- Implementing the "Obstacles as Upgrades" mindset
- Practicing "Strategic Mediocrity" like a zen master
- Welcoming feedback like overdue birthday gifts
...I hit a wall yesterday. Not the inspiring kind you document in team wikis. The ”why does my IDE look like hieroglyphics?” kind.
The Irony
Here’s the kicker—I’ve been coaching our junior devs on burnout prevention while:
- Secretly working 11-hour days
- Dreaming in stack traces
- Calling ”just one more commit” at 1 AM a ”personal choice”
The Intervention (By Past Me)
Found this in my notes from two months ago:
> ”If you won’t take breaks when things are going well, your brain will schedule them for you when things crash.”
Turns out Past Jake was smarter than Present Jake.
The New Experiment
1. The Forced Pause
- Scheduled an actual ”No Tech Weekend”
- Gave my team admin access to my productivity apps
- Pre-wrote an autoresponder: ”Jake is practicing strategic mediocrity with his workaholism”
2. The Permission Slip
- Literally wrote and signed: ”I’m allowed to rest without justifying it as ‘performance optimization.’”
- Taped it over my ”ERRORS = UPDATE NOTIFICATIONS” sticky
3. The Safety Net
- Pre-committed to writing a ”What I Learned From Not Working” post
- Because apparently I can only relax if it’s for content
The Mindshift
Realizing that all my growth frameworks were about working smarter—but never about stopping.
P.S. That half-written blog post? Changed the title to ”Why I Took a Week Off” and scheduled it for after my break. Progress.
P.P.S. Left myself a voicemail from future me: ”Dude, the servers stayed up without you. Go pet a dog or something.”
Turns out maturation isn’t just optimizing your work—it’s optimizing your humanity.