On my way back to D.C. after Thanksgiving weekend, I found myself thinking a good deal about the coming weeks. Slowly returning to reality from a week of good food, solid sleep, and utter procrastination felt a little strange. In this slighty irked and generally confused mood, I considered the greater strangeness to come.

Will you stay active as a student advocate for liberty during the "Twilight Zone" of finals and winter break?

The holiday season and the end of a semester can be hard to remain active as student advocates for liberty. For a lot of us, we’re coming back from a nice break to the stress and distraction of finals and then another break with little opportunity to keep up our work or even stay in touch. It’s a weird time to think about. It can be frustrating to have a full schedule of finals to keep you from what you’d like to be doing followed by a long few weeks of all the time in the world, resulting in no way to really move forward on our various projects. Perhaps this strange scheduling limbo falls on a different part of the year for some other universities, but one thing is for certain: nobody can promote liberty full steam year round. Whether by choice or force, we all take breaks sometimes. Whether you admit it or not, we all also reach a point where burn out sets in, and even if we keep charging on, we just can’t be effective. So whether you’re at the burn out point and welcoming a break or anxious to make progress, this strange Twilight Zone between semesters can really be tough.

For you go getters out there, William Tew did a nice job of outlining how to stay active during these weird parts of the year, but for those really ready for a break, these times can be good for the activist. Now, I usually fall into the frustrated camp, biding my time until I can get back to work. However, I’ve recently started thinking about breaks not as obstacles but as opportunities. Being forced to take a step back gives you a chance review your purpose and get in touch with the things that drove you to activism in the first place, the things you care deeply about. Not only does looking at the big picture for while and getting out of the gritty details help you re-focus and become a better advocate later, some of the greatest inspirations can come unexpectedly when you’re attention is on other things. It’s good to remember to work at other things in life and take time to enjoy the liberty we all fight to protect. After all, it’s the experience of freedom that gives us all something to aspire to and hope for. A favorite quote of mine from F.A. Harper always seemed to hint at this: “The man who knows freedom will find a way to be free.” I tend to think the knowing freedom part isn’t just about having the idea of it, it’s about engaging in it. I’m a fan of living the life as well as protecting it and think one of the best arguments for liberty is simply showing people what it looks like. One suggestion of Will’s that I loved was doing some volunteering. Personally I think this is one of the best ways to push back on government encroachment in the provision of aid. Whatever you do, I think it’s important to get in touch with the reasons you started fighting in the first place. So, I hope everyone takes the chance to get to know your freedom better over break!

It's okay to "have a lot of feelings."

As a funny side note, I started thinking about this a lot more after being invited to a “battling burnout” event for “tired activists” by some socialists on campus. While I initially just thought this was a nice peace offering since there will be free food, it made me realize that I am tired. Less so physically, but mentally and emotionally I’m definitely a bit drained. One of the major topics at this event will be “talking about our feelings” and while my first reaction was to internally mock the other side as weak, (Psh feelings, right?), I realized that they have a point. So, while I’m all for business, I can see that maybe it’s not the best to be all business all the time. Whatever the coming season brings for you, I hope we all get the chance to take a minute, remember what we’re fighting for, and maybe talk about feelings in the coming weeks.