We spent the weekend camping at Ricketts Glenn state park.
That camping trip wasn’t just fun—it was strategic slowing down period against the modern life’s go go go culture.
Most people think of renewal as something soft and optional. But these renewal benefits – less stress, a mental break, stronger social bonds – are as essential as food and water for our cognitive function. That heightened awareness, those meaningful conversations, that sense of time expanding instead of compressing—these aren’t luxuries. They’re glimpses of how your brain is supposed to work.
The tragedy is that we’ve normalized the depleted state as our baseline.
This weekend trip wasn’t an escape from reality. It was a return to it. The constantly-connected, perpetually-optimized life is the artificial construct.
How do you create micro-versions of that phone-free, agenda-less state within your regular life?
Maybe it’s a 20-minute walk where the phone stays home. Maybe it’s cooking dinner with no podcast in the background. Maybe it’s just sitting on your porch watching the sky change from day to night. Maybe it’s a weekend trip to a local state park.
The people who make the biggest impact don’t just work hard—it’s about renewing deliberately. They recognize that insight, creativity, and genuine connection happen in the spaces between constant activity.
We can’t go go go forever.
Renewal should be treated as a reconnaissance—valuable intelligence about how our system operates at its best.
Then we can ruthlessly apply those lessons to our ordinary life.
That’s how renewal becomes revolution.
Joe DiAndrea 