Why do we always want just a little more summer?

Every year we look forward to vacation as if it’s going to give us something we’ve been missing all year. And when it finally arrives, it seems to end before we’ve had our fill. There’s a strange experience that repeats itself almost every summer. We count down the days until we leave, imagine the days ahead of us, and dream of the beach, sleeping in, hanging out with friends, going for walks, and a morning without an alarm clock. And yet, when the vacation comes to an end, the phrase “My vacation wasn’t long enough” slips out effortlessly. A phrase so common that we hardly notice it anymore. And yet, perhaps it’s worth pausing to reflect on it for a moment. Maybe it really wasn’t very long. But perhaps the interesting question isn’t how many days the vacation lasts, but how much we mentally expect to happen during that time. Is it just the number of days, or is it something more?

Essentially, vacations aren’t just a period of time without work. They’re a time in which we invest many different emotional expectations. We expect to rest, to be happy, to fall in love, to connect, to sleep, to play, to take our time. We hope, perhaps, to rediscover a part of ourselves that, in the midst of daily life, has been lost somewhere amid our obligations. And perhaps that’s why vacations always seem too short.

Even before we leave, the vacation has already begun to take shape within us. We imagine it. We fill it with images and expectations.  “I’ll sleep, I’ll relax, I’ll have a wonderful time, I’ll have time for my loved ones, I’ll enjoy the sea.” We invest a great deal of emotional energy in them. In reality, we often don’t just look forward to taking a vacation; we expect the vacation to fix something. To make up for the exhaustion of an entire year. To restore the energy we’ve lost. To make us feel free again.

This is precisely where the first paradox lies. When the needs of an entire year are condensed into a few days, it’s almost inevitable that those days will seem insufficient. Vacations are expected to be more than just vacations. They’re expected to be rest, joy, reconnection, freedom, pleasure, renewal, and, sometimes, a brief escape from ourselves. And the more we expect to get out of our vacation, the easier it is to feel that it wasn’t enough.

But there’s something else, too. Pleasure carries within it a bittersweet truth: it doesn’t last forever. When we start having a good time, at some point we realize that time is passing. The first day becomes Tuesday, Tuesday becomes Friday, and suddenly there are only two days left. And then another paradox may occur: even while we’re still in the midst of the pleasure, we’re already beginning to experience its loss. “In a few days we’ll be leaving.” This thought can creep in even during the most beautiful moment. The experience is no longer just “I am here”; it is also “soon I won’t be here.”

Psychoanalytic thought reminds us that desire is not simply the same as a need. A need can be satisfied—just as I am thirsty and drink water. Desire, however, has a different dynamic. It often shifts, returns, and seeks something more. Freud, already in his work on the pleasure principle and later in *Beyond the Pleasure Principle*, highlighted the complex relationship between satisfaction, repetition, and desire (Freud, 1920). This can help us understand why even a truly wonderful week might leave us with the feeling, “I’d like more.” Not necessarily because we didn’t enjoy it enough. But because pleasure does not have the power to permanently rid us of desire. Perhaps, in fact, that “just a little more” is an integral part of the human experience.

There is, however, one aspect of modern life worth noting. Often, we go on vacation with the same mindset we have at work. We want to “make the most” of our days. To get things done. To see places. To do activities. To take photos. To not let a single day go to waste. As if there’s a voice inside us saying, “Since you have time, you have to make the most of it.” It’s the voice of demand, of performance—what Freud would call, within the framework of his theory of the psyche, a superego function: the internalized demand to conform to rules, expectations, and ideals. In this way, even rest can turn into work. And then we return from vacation exhausted from trying to rest.

Furthermore, for many people, summer also carries a special memory: childhood summers. Back when time seemed different. The three months of summer could feel endless. The days had a sense of space; there wasn’t the same feeling of “I have to get everything done.” As adults, we return to that time of year in a way every summer. Perhaps not just to a place, but also to an older sense of self. Summer can awaken a memory of a life with more play and fewer obligations.

Winnicott (1971) linked play to a special space of experience, situated between inner and outer reality, within which a person can be creative and feel more alive. Perhaps sometimes what we long for on vacation isn’t just the place. It’s the self we can be there. On vacation, we might be a little different. We wake up later. We eat without rushing. We walk more. We talk late into the night. We swim. We gaze at the horizon. We have time to think—or, even better, time to think about nothing at all. For a little while, we don’t have to be so productive. And that can be deeply relieving.

And then comes the return. The suitcase opens. Clothes are put away. The alarm clock goes off again. Emails pile up. The schedule fills up again. Along with them, our roles return: employee, parent, partner, professional, the person who has to live up to expectations. Returning, therefore, doesn’t just mean that vacation ends and work begins. It means that the roles, demands, and obligations that had temporarily eased are coming back. Perhaps that’s why sometimes coming back hurts more than the end of the vacation itself. We’re not just saying goodbye to a place; we’re not just losing a beach or a hotel. We’re temporarily losing a version of ourselves.

But perhaps the point isn’t to make our vacations long enough that we don’t miss them. That will probably never happen. Perhaps the question is, “What did my vacation give me that I miss so much when I return?” If it’s rest, we can ask ourselves where rest fits into our daily lives. If it’s connection, what has happened to our relationships the rest of the year? If it’s freedom, how much room do we allow ourselves to choose? If it’s play, when was the last time we did something without it having to be useful? And if it’s simply the feeling that “I’m more myself,” then perhaps that’s where the most important message lies. Vacations may not just be a break from life. They may be a mirror of the life we’d like to have a little more of. So perhaps we don’t need to hold on to summer forever. We need to hold on to something of what it allowed us to feel. A little more space, a little more enjoyment, a little less guilt when we’re not being productive, a little more play. And perhaps that way, during our vacation, we’ll remember that life isn’t just about what we have to get done.

Because vacations may indeed end very quickly, but…

“What if we could let a small part of that experience continue to live within us every day?”

Friday, 18 September 2026