Summer used to be filled with popsicles, beach days, and water balloon fights. The kind of days where the sun dictated the rhythm of time, and the biggest decision you had to make was whether to ride your bike or run through the sprinklers. But now, the constant demand of achievement leaves little room for the naïve, carefree summer so many of us used to enjoy. So, can summer ever be the same? It’s hard to tell. Yet the relentless culture of productivity leads me to say no.
After the notoriously difficult second semester of junior year filled with the ACT, endless essays, and the looming anxiety of college applications, I was anxiously awaiting the summer break. But summer was no longer the reward it used to be. Instead of ice cream trucks, there were deadlines. Instead of pool floats, there were resumes to build. The constant badgering of expectations from teachers, parents, peers, and even from myself, made it impossible to breathe.
The pressure comes from everywhere. From emails about graduation the day after junior prom, to counselors reminding us about college lists before finals week is even over, to internships and programs that ask us to prove ourselves before we even know who we are. Summer is no longer a season to rest: it has become another arena for competition.
It’s easy to suggest the simple solution: just ignore it until the school year starts, or, push through, finish the tasks, and then there will be time to rest. But this logic is flawed. It assumes that once the year begins, the chaos quiets, when in reality, that’s just when it’s getting started. Fall brings essays and applications, winter brings decisions and disappointments, spring brings the next round of anxieties.
Summer is simply the warm backdrop against which all of it unfolds.
The truth is, the idea of summer as an untouched sanctuary belongs to childhood. When you’re little, the world grants you permission to do nothing but exist. Adults smile indulgently as you nap in hammocks or spend hours building sandcastles. But as you grow older, the permission disappears. Every minute must be accounted for, documented, leveraged. You should be “using your summer” to get ahead. You should be earning your free time, not just living it.
This shift is not just about school, either. It’s cultural. We live in a society that worships busyness. Our culture tells us that rest is laziness, that fun is indulgence, that relaxation must be justified. So, when June arrives, instead of reaching for popsicles, we reach for planners. The carefree laughter of childhood summers is replaced with color-coded calendars and strategic goals.
When summer is reduced to another stepping stone toward the future, we lose the very thing that once made it sacred: presence. Summer used to demand nothing of us but our attention, to the waves rolling in, to the taste of watermelon juice dripping down our chins, to the chorus of the cicadas at night. Now, presence feels like a luxury we can’t afford.
Of course, some might argue that this is just growing up. That we all must trade the water balloons for resumes eventually. And yes, growing up comes with responsibility. But does it have to come at the expense of wonder? Why must becoming older mean we abandon joy?
Everyone has their own goals and free will, and there is certainly fulfillment in summer programs, internships, and job opportunities. But the larger problem lies in the culture of relentless achievement that frames even rest as wasted time.
So, can summer ever be the same? Maybe not. But perhaps that doesn’t mean it’s lost forever. Maybe the challenge of growing older is not to give up on fun but to reclaim it, consciously, and stubbornly. To carve out hours that are unproductive on purpose. To let ourselves be silly and unpolished and present. To resist the pressure to turn every moment into progress and instead let some moments simply be the way they are.
The truth is, the world will never stop asking things of us. Emails will keep coming, applications will keep looming, responsibilities will keep multiplying. But summer, even now, still offers the long days, the warm nights, the invitation to pause. It still gives us the chance to remember that life isn’t only about achieving: it’s about living. And, maybe the popsicles taste a little different now. Maybe the water balloon fights are rare. But if we allow ourselves, even for a moment, to laugh until our stomachs hurt, to feel the sun on our skin without guilt, and to remember what it means to be carefree, then perhaps summer, in its truest form, isn’t gone. It’s waiting for us to notice it again.
