Wherever You Are Visiting, Don’t Forget That Daily Pains Accrue Regardless
Vacations feel relaxing in theory — but they’re secretly endurance events. That’s why building active rest into them is essential.
I’ve been doing a lot of walking — so much walking that my ankles feel swollen and my hips are protesting in pain. Constantly standing from taking multiple subways and trains in one day just to get to a single destination. And all of this happening while I’m “on vacation.”
I’m very fortunate that my busted knees decided not to fold on themselves from all the walking, climbing, and navigating the sea of people that either flow or crash through everyone else’s way. All while I’m trying not to get separated from my family or get lost.
Despite the cold — previous days were around 19°C, which my sad American brain cannot convert to Fahrenheit on the fly — the usual twisted pain that creeps into my knees gave me a temporary reprieve.
That’s something people don’t talk about much when it comes to vacation.
You expect to leave home, go somewhere new, and do nothing but relax, right?
You’re going to hate yourself for how wrong that expectation is.
Why? Because your body is still active. It doesn’t know you’re on “vacation.” All it knows is:
you’re walking through stores and crowded streets
you’re running to catch trains and hoping they’re the right ones
you’re carrying snacks, water, coats, and souvenirs in your backpack
you’re navigating someone else’s itinerary
you’re underfed, underhydrated, and running on overstimulation
Your pains don’t go away.
Vacation or no vacation.
In fact, your existing pain gets worse when you weren’t the one who built the itinerary. Forget about taking breaks. Forget about putting your feet up. Forget about sitting down for more than five minutes. You’re on borrowed time and someone else’s clock, and your body will make sure you know it.
Vacationing, am I right?
Introducing the Merciful Active Rest Days
Most of us pack our schedule like we’re trying to speedrun a country. But pain still accrues, and your body still keeps score. That’s where active rest days come in.
Active rest days are your off days from the gym — except you’re still moving, just less intensely. You’re not pushing your usual weights, you’re not chasing PRs, you’re not doing crazy calisthenics. You’re simply being a slower, softer version of your usual chaotic self.
Each morning while I was on vacation, I woke up as early as I could and, if space allowed, I took 10–30 minutes to myself to engage my body:
Cat-cows
Bird-dogs
Walking lunges
Shoulder, forearm, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle circles
Cossack squats
Regular squats
Split practice
Butterfly stretches
Any stretching I could do with limited time and space
And contrast showers — from hot, to proper cold (not cool), then back
After warming up and stretching (10–15 minutes), I did two sets of push-ups:
My baseline of 10 reps for the first set, and a smaller second set starting at 5 and slowly increasing each day.
I recorded everything in the Notes app on my phone, and I’ll transfer it to my workout book when I get home.
This technically counted toward my two-day training schedule, but realistically, I mostly managed stretching, mobility, and a little strengthening with my time constraints.
Did Any of This Help?
I want to be very clear: my rushed routine of warming up, doing push-ups, stretching, and taking contrast showers did help.
Until it didn’t.
Active rest is merciful — not magical. It doesn’t erase pain. It teaches you how to manage it when you don’t have your usual tools.
For me, those tools include:
A foam roller
A decent amount of floor space
And, ultimately, TIME
On vacation, you don’t get any of that.
So instead of dragging myself through pain, I moved with intention — because that was all I could control.
You get creative enough to manage your pains. At least until you get back home and return to your normal pain-management rhythms.
Next Time I’ll Be Better Prepared
I underestimated what was going to happen on this trip, and I paid the price over four short (but painfully long) days.
Next time, if I want to keep my training and pain goals in mind, I’m bringing one set of exercise clothes and using the hotel gym or spa facilities. Especially if they’re open 24/7 and there’s a washer and dryer. Clean clothes are as important to your health as sleep, food, and training.
Doing this might mean deviating from someone else’s itinerary — but breaking yourself on vacation and arguing with your travel group is completely counterproductive.
For the Fellow Archivists Beaten Up by Vacationing Too
If anything here resonated with you, feel free to:
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or quietly reflect on your own vacation-war stories
If you’d like to share your thoughts, leave a comment below or send them anonymously to:
whatimtryingoutnow@gmail.com
Thank you for making it to the end of this post. Below are other articles you can explore in the Archives to satisfy your curiosity.
In my last article, Writing for 40 Days and Nights: Time for a Break, I said that I was going to take a break. That I was going to finally give myself time to recover from, not only publishing for 40 consistent days, working on my downloadable Stratagem’s Manifesto 1.5 and making sticker drafts you can find here, Two Manifestos + A Gift (For Fellow Archivists), in, what, less than a week? Yeah, less than a week to finish.
As much as I want to hibernate for a month, my mind is buzzing with more ideas, more things to sit with, more things to process than I can keep up with. It’s not bad, though, it can be a lot to juggle.
Sometimes I feel as though I’m holding myself hostage to the grind of writing and publishing, but also wanting to answer for myself, “what else can I do?”
The only way I know how to answer this question is to take action — keep writing, keep thinking, keep breaking myself because it’s the only way forward.
Sometimes I think that doing the things that I do are simply out of habit. However, I started wondering that it might be more than habit, discipline, or motivation fanning these flames.
I Don’t Have a Diagnosis
This feeling doesn’t feel like it’s OCD — at least, I don’t think so, without a proper diagnosis. But it’s close enough that the shadow it casts follows me everywhere.
I live by certain rituals, routines, and rules not because I want to, and not because I’ve mastered discipline, but because I feel like I have to.
Without them, I spiral. Hard. And there’s no way to swim against a current made to drown me.
When Routine Becomes a Lifeline
Every morning, my life is dictated by a checklist that I didn’t write with freedom — I wrote it with survival.
I wake up between 2:00 and 2:45 AM, leave my studio before or exactly at 3:30 AM. If I don’t? My mind sounds the alarm:
“You’re late. You’re slipping. You’re behind.”
Even when I’m hours early for my shift, even when I still get a parking spot — if the routine breaks, so does my mental calm.
And the rituals don’t stop there.
I lock my door, then push on it exactly three times to make sure. If I don’t, anxiety starts building like a pressure leak. At best, it simmers. At worst, it floods my thoughts with doubt, fear, self-blame. My own mind turns on me.
This isn’t about productivity. It’s about pacifying the part of me that believes something will go wrong unless I do everything right.
Perfectly.
In order.
On time.
It’s Not Just Routine. It’s Ritual.
The compulsions aren’t always loud. Sometimes they show up in quiet decisions — like today, when I told myself I’d get gas tomorrow, like usual, at half a tank.
But when I pulled out of the lot, I felt this pull toward the gas station. A force. A whisper. A weight that said:
“If you don’t stop now, something will go wrong.”
So I stopped.
Not because it was logical.
Not because I needed to.
But because I felt like if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be okay.
And even though I was already up early, already prepared, already doing “enough,” my mind doesn’t care. It doesn’t measure effort — it measures control. And when it feels like I’ve lost control, it punishes me in silence.
Living in the Gray
This… gray space — of feeling things so intensely, needing control, needing to feel safe, but knowing it doesn’t quite qualify for a clinical label — it’s a lonely place to live in.
Like my asexuality, like the way I process the world — it’s a spectrum. Not everyone in the gray is heard. People like me, like us, we’re often overlooked because we’re “not broken enough” to be helped and “not well enough” to be fine.
We’re not living scar-free. But we’re not failures either.
We’re just trying to stay afloat. To breathe. To give ourselves a chance.
Not Impulse — But Survival
This isn’t impulse. I’ve kept my blog streak going for over 36 consecutive days within the last three months. That’s not an accident. That’s not chance.
But even that came from compulsion.
What started as curiosity — can I publish daily? — became I need to keep this up or I’ve failed.
Even rest is not safe from this voice.
Sometimes I sit down just to breathe. Just to give my legs a break. But I still feel it — something breathing down my neck, whispering:
“You’re not doing enough. You’re not good enough. You’re wasting time. You’re failing again.”
Sometimes I don’t eat.
I struggle to sleep.
Not because I’m lazy — but because my body doesn’t feel permitted to rest until I’ve done enough.
Even though the finish line keeps moving.
A Harsh Kind of Comfort
Still — and this is the part I hate admitting — the routine does give me something.
Even when it hurts to keep up. Even when I’m running on fumes and cursing the alarm at 2:15 AM. Even when my back aches from work or my writing feels like it’s running dry. There’s comfort in the ritual. Not joy. Not peace. But order.
When the rest of the world feels unpredictable, when my body’s tired and my mind’s spinning, the routine is the one thing that stays the same. It doesn’t care how I feel. It doesn’t ask if I’m okay. It just says: this is what we do.
There’s a kind of safety in that — in not having to think, in just going through the motions. It keeps the chaos outside the gates, at least for a while. And when everything else feels like it’s slipping, sticking to the routine lets me believe — even just barely — that I’m still in control.
But it’s a harsh kind of comfort. It costs me. It takes pieces.
And I know I can’t live like this forever.
I just don’t know how to stop without everything falling apart.
To the People in the Gray
If you’re someone like me — someone living in the gray space between coping and spiraling, between diagnosis and “normal,” between being fine and being far from it — I see you.
You are not imagining it.
You’re not making it up.
You’re not alone.
Your pain, your patterns, your rituals — even the ones that don’t make sense to anyone else — they have a story. They have a weight. And they matter.
A Gentle Ask
Have you ever experienced something similar to this?
Feeling like you’re not enough, worthless, and pathetic when you’re doing everything you can to stay above water?
That it feels like control without feeling grounded, but punished for needing a break?
Learning to be kinder to ourselves?
If this resonated with you, or if you know someone who might need to hear this, I gently ask:
➡️ Like, share, and subscribe.
It helps more than you know — not just my writing, but the visibility of stories like this.
People with invisible bruises and structured coping mechanisms.
You deserve to be seen.
To be heard.
To be understood.
Even if you’re still figuring yourself out.
Author’s Reflection
It’s not easy being kinder, more patient, and willing to accept letting my grip on control loosen. I got out of bed later, left a few minutes after 0330, and my car is facing the other way instead of the usual.
The headaches remind me that I’m doing things wrong, but the voices that usually sweeps me down volatile territory have gotten a little quieter.
Maybe I’ll be able to be kinder, patient, and accepting myself through a different lens. The voices of doubt, insecurity, and compulsion will fight back, but guess what?
That’s how long I’ve been showing up here — early mornings, late nights, between shifts, in the quiet spaces I carved out when the world pressed too heavy.
Forty days of drafting, writing, publishing, creating, and letting my thoughts become proof that I was here.
It feels as though I’ve done so much in 3 months than I had in my entire lifetime. Something amazing, something worth while. But now?
Now, I need to pause.
Why I’m Stepping Back
Writing daily has given me momentum I didn’t think I had. It’s helped me build a voice, connect with Fellow Archivists, create sticker ideas, written 2 PDFs, and keep moving forward when life felt suffocating.
But the truth is: I’m tired.
I work two jobs. I lose sleep. I’ve been burning through myself to make space for these words. And while spite and fire have carried me further than I imagined, they can’t sustain me forever.
If I want this archive to grow with me — not collapse under me — I need to rest.
What This Means for the Archive
This is not the end.
I’ll still be active on The Stratagem’s Archive. I’ll still be tending the space — updating old posts, refining what’s here, and making sure this doesn’t just become another abandoned corner of the internet.
Though, there won’t be new posts for a while. Not until I’ve taken enough time to breathe, to sleep, and to come back with more clarity and strength.
To the Silent Readers and the Vocal Ones
Thank you.
Whether you’ve left comments, liked posts, subscribed, or simply read in silence at 3AM — your presence matters. You’ve been part of these forty days, even if we never exchanged a word.
You all made writing worthwhile, even when I started writing here for myself.
Here is a gift you could check out below if you’d like for being here and as Fellow Archivists:
A sketch of my job’s mascot representing a person’s (mental and emotional) prison FINALLY getting a chance to be let out in a rage room.
I Would Like To Rage!!! In A Rage Room!
“Ever felt that bubbling rage boiling up from within the pit of your soul? You know the feeling: Your body begins shaking, you feel your hands curling and clenching, your breathing becomes shallower and fast, your vision begins to narrow and sound becomes less noticeable, and you feel the need to exert energy and force.
Many of us keep our emotions bottled up, afraid of judgement and the consequences that will follow if we act on our anger indiscriminately and lash out.
That’s where a Rage Room comes in!
A Smash room, a break room, a destruction room, whatever you want to call them, these rooms will allow you to safely explore these feelings that are commonly frowned upon in civilized society in a safe, controlled, and sanctioned environment.
Observations From A Rage Room Attendant
As a rage rooms attendant, I’ve seen a lot of different people enter the rage room for their own reasons. Many people, after getting everyone comfortable with the idea with breaking and destroying things, are initially visiting for a few reasons:
It’s a company team building experience.
A family or friend outing.
Are looking for novelty.
Celebrating something significant.
Going through a lot of stress and emotions.
Had been hurt, betrayed, or been through a break up.
After they pick their items, are suited up, given the safety rules, and put into the rooms, depending on the size of their party, it’s usually free game within their 30-45 minute time slot.
Some people are awkward and don’t put too much force behind their swings or throws that I tend to find a lot of things left unbroken that I can give to the next group to break.
Although, most visitors are military, so they fall into one of two categories:
They are either so efficient that they are in and out of the room in under 5 minutes, likely due to their efficiency and training, while others take their time and enjoy themselves after being on tour.
Then there’s those who are doing this for fun with friends and family, or people who are celebrating a huge win for their company and they actually like and enjoy their coworkers enough to do an outing, and or someone is leaving their company and this is a farewell gift(a pretty cool and memorable one in my opinion).
I’ve seen the people who have had their hearts broken. There is nothing more painful and rage inducing than hurt, pain, and loss. When they enter, some are willing to share that they’ve gone through a break up, they still have a smile or neutral expression on their face, but others you can tell only by the type of music they play when the room door closes. It’s pretty obvious and we can see their behavior on the cameras to make sure they’re doing okay.
Real World Examples In Action
I remember a group of women, three friends, came in because one friend was going through heartbreak. All three were extremely enthusiastic when in the room that I saw they were stomping on a CPU unit after being told not to in the safety briefing.
Fun can make people myopic, but they knew what they were getting themselves into and we made sure they didn’t do anything to really hurt themselves or each other.
Another visitor was a high school boy and his good friend. He was visiting because he was going through a break up, and from what the dad, and the boy’s choice in music, told me.
The second I heard, “Photograph, Thinking Out Loud, and Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, ‘I’m Not The Only One” by Sam Smith, “It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars, and other sad sounding love songs, I knew what was happening.
The Pro’s of A Rage Room
I may be a rage room attendant trying to endorse people to try something I work at, but I’ve seen the benefits of people taking their frustrations out with us than outside in the world. Besides novelty, a Rage Room:
Allows for safe and immediate release of anger and excess emotions: Why destroy things outside and get arrested, when you can do so someplace designed for this kind of release?
Accessible and low-commitment: Unlike therapy or martial arts gyms, you don’t have to commit to scheduled sessions. You can walk in, smash and scream, drink water, and leave and return whenever you want.
Provides cathartic support: You don’t have to talk, no one has to listen, it’s just you in a room with things to break, a few lead pipes and sledgehammers, and the world doesn’t have to bat an eye to you in that room. Except us employees. Whatever happens in the rage room, stays in the rage room(unless you’re recording on your phone).
What Are the Downsides?
The cons are just as important to know as the pros. They do make a difference if you want to give it a try or not, but it’s not always a make or break deal. Visiting a rage room isn’t always the best solution. A rage room:
Can be expensive: It’s a better investment than bail, but the money could be better used towards therapy or a martial arts classes.
It doesn’t address the root cause or emotion for the visit: rage rooms are meant to be fun, novel, and an outlet for sublimation, but it’s not a solution. Rage rooms can’t provide skills or strategies to deal with anger or excess emotions that professional help is better equipped to do.
It could reinforce destructive behavior: Ironically, though we do have repeat customers, a rage room might reinforce someone’s inclination to deal with their emotions through destructive means. I’m not suggesting that these repeat customers fall into this assumption, but people are interesting and might cling to this outlet as the only solution they can get.
Not readily available in your area: Rage rooms are a growing trend, but aren’t everywhere. My workplace is the only one in my state, so some people have to take a drive down or need a plane ticket over. It’s another reason to consider long-term and local alternatives instead.
Do Rage Rooms Have Anything Else?
Yes, as far as my job goes, Rage rooms do have other means of letting excess energy out. People don’t have to come in angry to enjoy the services my job can offer, though some people are usually in need of a different kind of release. One not catering towards destruction, rather one that’s more creative.
We have a Zen Lounge where people can relax, talk stories, and chill after a rage room session or before entering the Splatter Room.
A Splatter Room is an open paint room where you can shoot paint at the walls, the provided canvases, or each other with paint guns or the paint kits.
It’s a different and creative release some people appreciate instead of wanting to break things when they don’t feel compelled to.
We do provide safety gear: ponchos, eye wear, and boots to protect people’s clothes and eyes as best as possible, but friends and family make that difficult when fun’s involved.
Being creative can be just as cathartic as the rage room as it lets you be physical and you don’t have to care what you create, compared to painting a masterpiece or someone’s house.
What About The Overly Enthusiastic Individuals?
Some people have asked, other than what items they are allowed to bring to smash from the outside, if they could bring the person who hurt them in to smash. Other than an obvious, “no”, I’m able to suggest another alternative.
An Alternative To Rage: Martial Arts
I’ve done wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu prior to working at the rage room, so I suggest that people can visit a sparring gym.
Any gym that offers sparring:
Boxing.
Kickboxing.
Judo.
Muay-Thai.
Wrestling.
BJJ.
ANY MARTIAL ARTS GYM.
Any good gym will teach you new physical skills and how to ensure you keep a level head. Anger doesn’t make a person stronger, no matter how much of a fan of Dragon Ball Z or Naruto: Shippuden you are.
Those are animes; we don’t live in an anime where we’re the main characters with plot armor. I know this intimately and from experience that anger makes you sloppy, predictable, and a sore loser who refuses to learn or adjust their approach to the sport and to life.
True Strength Lies Within
I had spent more than 10 years wrestling with my anger. During BJJ training, I didn’t care what happened to me, I wanted to see what I could do. Even if that meant enduring some locks or chokes because I didn’t want to tap out and I wanted to see if I could get out. My personal motto was, “If I can talk, I’m still breathing.”
However, I’ve been dealing with emotional numbness for years that a professor at my gym told me some people, and himself, thought something was wrong with me.
That kind of hurt because that told me people thought I was damaged in some way and it showed in my training. I was eager to learn and use my wrestling experience to help me learn a new sport, but I needed to FEEL something, anything, because I struggled to that wasn’t anger. So, once being told this, I tried to tap more, but my habits always kicked in, unless something really did hurt.
My training would suffer when I got mad; I would be blind to the countermoves, to the opportunities to attack and defend. I needed more energy, and my trade off was horrible in the end.
I hated training, I hated myself, and that hate made it difficult to learn or pay attention to the lessons being taught, in BJJ and in life.
I would rather train and spar than deal with the real reasons for my anger, but I did it anyways. I needed to because doing nothing would have gotten me into real trouble. Then what? I’d be in jail and have that on my record for life, making a lot of opportunities impossible and out of reach than it already is for me.
Therapy wasn’t the best fit for me when I tried it, but I’m not averse to trying again. Money is kinda tight right now, so I’ve started taking notes, noticing any changes in myself and what could have caused it, setting boundaries, having standards for myself, while pursing new outlets at home and on a budget.
Seeking professional help, even learning new skills, to redirect anger through a sport or art is more powerful than anger ever could be. It takes more strength and courage to do the things that scare us and I know well that facing my own demons are terrifying.
I’ve been noticing that some places in my life ignite the rage I’ve been keeping under wraps. It emerges when I feel disrespected, looked down upon, or made a fool of because I’m not conventionally successful or in a position of authority. I’m just a grunt at my full time job and it drives me up the wall.
Anger and sublimation are signals, not long term solutions, and are trying to tell you that something is wrong. Don’t let it consume you because you might do something you could regret.
Reflection
Have you ever gone to a rage room for its novelty, creative outlet, or needed to break something that wasn’t going to hit you back? If you did, share your experience with 1 word that described what it was like or how you felt when you visited.
I’d love to know what your opinions on them are in the comments below. No pressure. No clickbait. Just curious. Thank you, Fellow Archivists, I’ll see you all in another post.
Call to Action
If any part of this resonated with you — the release, the rage, the quiet that follows after — consider sharing this piece with someone who might need a reminder that it’s okay to break before you rebuild.
Every read, like, subscribe, and share helps this small corner of the internet grow a little louder in a world that keeps trying to quiet us down.
Below are other reflections I had on feeling anger, redirecting it, not feeling enough, and doing something different.
