Jon Staff

As a kid, I loved Halloween for all the obvious reasons—the costumes, the candy, the thrill of roaming around after dark with my friends. I’d look forward to October 31 all year. As an adult without kids of my own, Halloween doesn’t loom as large in my life anymore, but lately I’ve been coming to appreciate it in a new way. 

There’s something so comforting about a low-stakes holiday. Unlike the more “serious” holidays, we don’t have to worry about accommodating out-of-town family or cooking multi-course meals. We don’t have to buy thoughtful gifts for our loved ones; instead, we can stick to buying fun-sized candy bars for neighborhood kids. 

And there are still plenty of annual traditions for those who partake: crafting costumes, carving jack-o-lanterns, outfitting our homes with seasonal decorations ranging from spooky (cobwebs, bats, skeletons) to kitsch (decorative gourds). Throughout October, the same classic songs play in rotation on radio stations and in stores: The Monster Mash, Thriller, the Ghostbusters Theme. We read ghost stories and watch scary movies. On Halloween itself, there’s a sense of communal goodwill and festive spirit: jack-o-lanterns flicker on doorsteps, little kids troop around in cute costumes, neighbors open their doors to hand out sweets to all who ask. For one night, the problems of the world seem far away. 

My feelings about Halloween have grown up as I have, turning from shivery excitement to warm nostalgia. That warmth, continuity of tradition, and community goodwill is what I want to hold onto as we move deeper into fall. 

One week after Halloween, on November 7, we’ll turn the clocks back as we return to Standard Time, earning an extra hour of free time to use however we please (except for Hawaiians and Arizonans, whose states don’t observe Daylight Saving Time). I’m always delighted when I come across a clock or watch I’ve forgotten to reset, then realize I still have another hour. I feel rich in time all day. 

And then darkness arrives a full hour earlier than it did the day before, and I have to recalibrate to ward off a sense of gloom, especially after the uncertainty and disorientation of the past 18 months. These days, I’m turning my attention to all of the things I love about fall: the trees bursting into color, leaves crackling underfoot, the crisp air and golden afternoon light. The way the stars look brighter than they do in summer, even in the city. Hot cider and perfect apples and butternut squash soup, brisk walks in the park with friends. At home, I take my cues from the Scandinavians, who’ve learned how to manage their 18-hour nights by prioritizing coziness and simple comforts: candles and lamplight, meals in a slow-cooker, good blankets and warm socks. 

Let’s find joy and comfort where we can, friends. Happy Halloween! 

Last month at the Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles’s decision to step back from competition dominated news cycles for days, with commentators and fans expressing shock and confusion that the world’s greatest gymnast was bowing out of events she seemed all but guaranteed to win. But if we’d been paying closer attention, we might’ve seen it coming. Shortly before leaving for Tokyo, a New York Times reporter asked Biles to identify the happiest point in her career. She replied: “Honestly, probably my time off.”

Biles wasn’t the first athlete to prioritize rest and mental health over professional performance: in late May, tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, citing struggles with anxiety and depression.  ““I wanted to…exercise self-care and preservation of my mental health. I stand by that,” Osaka wrote in a recent essay for TIME. “It’s O.K. to not be O.K., and it’s O.K. to talk about it.”

We’ve always looked to elite athletes as models of strength, determination, and perseverance. Now, they are setting a new kind of standard: recognizing and honoring their own limits; admitting that the relentless pressure to perform—whether self-imposed or external—is exhausting and debilitating; and announcing without shame or hesitation that they need time for themselves.

We would be wise to follow their lead. With summer winding down and businesses navigating how and when they might be able to “return to normal,” American workers are pushing back with demands for remote work and flexible hours policies.  But skyrocketing rates of exhaustion and burnout reveal that we don’t just need more options for when and where we do our work—we need more time away from work altogether.

Since the spring, American workers have been quitting their jobs at record-breaking rates, a trend the media have cheekily dubbed The Great Resignation. As New York Times reporter Kevin Roose observed in his article “Welcome to the YOLO Economy,” quitting workers have a wide range of reasons for walking off the job: ongoing concerns about Covid-19 exposure, burnout and fatigue, confidence that they can find better options in a strong job market. But at their core, Roose writes, these are “variations on the same basic theme: The pandemic changed my priorities, and I realized I didn’t have to live like this.” 

The last year and a half has shown us that humans are remarkably adaptable, as ever-changing Covid-19 protocols have altered the ways we work, learn, shop, and socialize. But the more profound lesson of the pandemic is that life is unpredictable and precarious, and none of us knows how much time we have left. 

As the British journalist Oliver Burkeman points out in his new book Four Thousand Weeks, “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.”(How short? The answer is in the book’s title; 4,000 weeks equals approximately 80 years.) Faced with the grim reality that our time is limited and already running out, we obsess over how best to use it and how to avoid wasting it. We tend to focus on our productive output as the measure of time well spent. How many tasks did we accomplish—how much did we get done—within any given hour or day? 

According to Burkeman, “this attitude toward time sets up a rigged game in which it’s impossible ever to feel as though you’re doing well enough…. [I]t becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some future goal.”  The danger of this line of thinking is that in attempting to spend our time productively, we neglect to spend it meaningfully. We put off the things that matter most to us—deepening our bonds with friends and family, traveling to new places, pursuing personal projects and hobbies—everything we say we’ll get to as soon as we have some free time. 

Here’s a wakeup call: we are never going to get through our to-do lists. We are never going to find the hack that finally allows us to “get everything done.” Our goals, dreams, and desires will always exceed the time we have to accomplish them, because we’re mortal, and there’s only so much living you can pack into a few thousand weeks. As long as we keep prioritizing productivity, that mythical free-time future—the one in which we finally get around to the stuff that really matters—will never arrive. 

As depressing as that thought might be, it can also be liberating. Burkeman argues that the best time-management tool is to accept defeat, or perhaps more accurately, to accept reality. Once we acknowledge that we will never be able to achieve all of our goals—that “doing it all” isn’t just unreasonable but impossible—we can begin prioritizing the few things that matter most to us. 

This summer, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles made headlines by announcing, essentially, that they would no longer be striving for the unreasonable and impossible. “We also have to focus on ourselves, because at the end of the day, we’re human, too,” Biles said. “So, we have to protect our mind and our body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.” Osaka put it more bluntly in her essay for TIME: “You can’t please everyone.” 

If you can’t please everyone, who do you care most about pleasing?  If you can’t do everything, what do you want to do most? Lately I’ve been thinking of a magnet you may recognize from a refrigerator near you: Life is short, eat dessert first. What is the purpose of life, anyway, if we can’t make some space for sweetness right now? 

Ready for a sweet escape to nature? Book your Getaway today.

Last month, we asked you to nominate people who would benefit from time to disconnect but might not go on a Getaway on their own.

So many of you wrote in — over 650 — with stories of those you admire. It was a heartwarming reminder to me and the team of the specialness and strength of our individual communities.

We started off the month thinking we would give away one tiny cabin escape to a deserving nominee. After reading impassioned stories from across the country, we decided to up that number to eight – one for each of our Outposts. We were touched by the messages you sent us, including these:

“He is our community’s disaster relief person. He worked tirelessly for the past four months trying to help our town get their lives back in order after devastating floods in March of this year. He deserves a break.”

“My sister has worked in public education for over 20 years, supporting low-income middle school and high school students to access the best high schools and colleges they can. She goes above and beyond and supports alumni of her school — first generation college students — throughout their first years of college, a crucial time when many students are in danger of dropping out.”

“She is a human rights advocate and professional who just returned from a position in the Middle East. While her work is incredibly positive and serves to empower those to rebuild and provide relief to a war-torn nation, it’s taxing and often traumatic. It’s time for her to take time for herself the same level of care she offers selflessly to others.”

“I am nominating my mother because she is having an above-average stressful year and could use some time well spent with her family. Between working and taking care of her elderly parents, she has recently been taking care of my brother who has fallen ill. She always inspires me to be true to myself. She loves nature and I know it would be rejuvenating for her.“

“He works SO hard as a youth pastor and at his other full time job. He is always making time for everyone else, and it’s time he took a break for himself.”

“My brother moved home with me two years ago to help take care of our single mother who has had Parkinson’s Disease for over 10 years. We try to meditate together and do our best to be outside and work in our garden. It is not easy to do this as we do not have much time outside of work. I would love for him to get out and connect with himself in nature.“

“She is a special needs daycare teacher who goes above expectations to ensure that all of her children are afforded the inclusive early education they deserve. On a daycare worker’s salary, her hard work is undervalued and time for herself is limited. She deserves a Getaway to be celebrated the way she celebrates her children everyday.”

“For 8 weeks, and at least 50 hours a week, he led a camp of 240 inner city students. Any camp is tiresome, but as one could imagine, many of the students at this camp came in hungry, upset at violence happening in their neighborhood, tired and many other things. He took the time to invest in each child, hear their stories all while building up the 50 plus interns to lead their classes. They both love camping, and this would be the perfect getaway and a long but fulfilling summer.”

“He works SO hard as a youth pastor and at his other full time job. He is always making time for everyone else, and it’s time he took a break for himself! I know he would love being out in the outdoors like this.”

These are inspiring stories of people doing what they can to help their families and their communities.

When we talk about burning out, we often conjure the image of the evil, lurking boss — the one who demands another hour be clocked or another vacation spurned. There are bad bosses, absolutely. But many of us and those close to us burn ourselves out not only through our supervisors’ unreasonable demands but also our own deep dedication. The effort is admirable — but the side effects are often the same: too little time for mindfulness, self-care, and the opportunity to just be. That’s why I am so glad we can send the folks mentioned above on their own Getaways, on us. I wish we could do it for everyone.

In other news this month: we are officially open just two hours outside of LA. Getaway Big Bear is already delighting our Southern California friends with tiny cabins for their mindful escape. Coming up next: Getaway Piney Woods outside of Dallas, which just launched booking for this fall.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful September.

Be Well,

Jon Staff

This week on my local radio station, WNYC, longtime morning host Brian Lehrer is reminding us to check in with our trees. Late last fall, Lehrer invited his listeners to select a tree to “adopt” and track over the course of a year. “Trees are fully our neighbors,” added Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist,  ecologist, and frequent guest on the show. “They’re all around us in our daily lives, we should get to know them.” 

Each month, the show hosts a special segment for listeners to share updates and observations about their chosen trees. The callers sometimes sound like proud parents reporting on their kids’ latest milestones: new buds! Spreading leaves! Birds in the branches! Other times, listeners share concerns about the loss of greenery in their neighborhoods. This week, a woman in the Bronx tells Lehrer and Anzelone that so many acorn-bearing oak trees have been cut down in her neighborhood, the local squirrel population is losing its food source. “We have to feed them peanuts,” she says. “Squirrels in our projects carry bagels up to the trees.”

I’m always grateful when I turn on the radio and happen to catch one of these monthly tree check-ins. I love thinking of the trees in my Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn neighborhood not just as fixtures of the landscape but actual neighbors whose lives intersect with my own. Fifty years ago, the community activist and environmentalist Salvatore “Buddy” Scotto began organizing to create more green space in Carroll Gardens . Today, many of the established trees along my daily walk speak to his work and legacy. More recently, the NYC Parks Department has planted new trees throughout the city (including on my block in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn) as part of its MillionTreesNYC initiative. Each young tree is tagged with a QR code that passersby can use to look up information about the tree and the program. Watching these baby trees grow over the years I’ve lived in my apartment has deepened my own sense of connection to the neighborhood. 

As community members, trees are pretty great: they improve air and soil quality; provide a buffer against erosion, drought, and flooding; and offer cooling shade during the summer heat. Animals find shelter and nutrition in their branches, while numerous studies confirm that humans experience substantially lower levels of stress,  and better all-around health, when they live among trees. 

Observing a single tree over the course of a year is more than just a botany experiment. It’s an exercise in sustained attention. To notice how a tree changes from day to day, week to week, season to season, requires engaging all the senses, and a whole lot of patience. It is the very best method I’ve found to slow the rush of time. 

Last month, I shared that I was stressed out and overcommitted, with a jam-packed calendar that made me feel like the  whole summer was practically over before it had even begun. But the young tree growing directly outside my building is indifferent to my calendar. This week, its leaves seem a little fuller and a little deeper green than they were last week, though maybe I’m just imagining that. In truth, to my untrained eye, it’s barely changed at all. Eventually, its leaves will start to yellow and brown, signaling the end of one season and the beginning of the next. But for now, it’s in no hurry at all.

Ready for your next escape to nature? Book your Getaway today.

Technically, summer begins on June 21 and ends on September 21, but I’ve always found summer to be about more than just the relative angle of the earth to the sun. When I was in school, summer began the very second after my last classes let out and lasted until the morning I returned to school, one grade older. As an adult, I feel like summer has truly started once I have fully submerged myself in the ocean for the first time.

For many Americans, the summer season kicks off with the Fourth of July and lasts until Labor Day, but I have a friend who likes to joke that by the time the Fourth arrives, summer is already over. He means how quickly the months fly by, especially when they’re packed full of travel, social commitments, and all the aspirational activities we tell ourselves we’ll get to “this coming summer.”  I can relate. This season, my schedule is stuffed to bursting with work trips, weddings, and visits with friends and family—many long-postponed due to Covid-19 surges over the past two years. I’ve been having that “where did summer go?” feeling for weeks, and July hasn’t even started yet.

While there’s very little I miss about the scary early months of the pandemic, I do feel nostalgic for the large stretches of time that opened during lockdowns. Our collective FOMO vanished because there was literally nothing to miss out on. Month after month, I watched events and meetings disappear off my calendar, leaving behind empty squares. Sometimes the cancellations were disappointing—a vacation abroad, a close friend’s wedding—but more often than not, I felt relieved. I didn’t have to go anywhere or see anyone, and no one expected me to.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I’m less motivated by FOMO than what I’ll call FODO, the Fear of Disappointing Others. How often do I say “yes” to a plan because I don’t want to hurt a friend’s feelings, or because I worry my Board of Directors will think I’m not working hard enough otherwise? To be clear, I love spending time with friends and family, and I love getting to grow and develop this business. But in my eagerness to make up for all the time and togetherness we’ve lost since March 2020, I’ve neglected to make space for the summer activity I love best: spending long, unstructured days without any commitments on the imminent horizon, free to do whatever I want, including absolutely nothing at all.

It’s time to correct course. I’m not going to go full hermit (tempting as it is!). But this week I’ve been revisiting a favorite quote from the writer Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” It’s such a simple point, and yet so easy to forget as we get caught up in the minutiae of daily living. Of all the activities I’m squeezing into my days, which are the ones that really matter? Which will I even remember in a year, or two, or ten? How am I spending my life?

Asking myself these questions makes it easier to identify which events, activities, and trips are truly important, and which I can turn down. I remind myself that being protective of my time isn’t selfish or antisocial. It gives me the respite and space to show up as a better version of myself: less stressed, more present, entirely content where I am.

Need an escape from the noise? Book your Getaway today.