Why the Middle of the Year Can Feel Like Relief and Guilt at Once (And Why That Makes Sense)

Feeling relieved the year's half over, and feeling guilty about that relief, aren't opposites. They're separate, and completely true things that can turn up at exactly the same time.

I noticed it in myself this year.  I caught myself thinking it, thank goodness, we're halfway through the year. Right after that, came the other thought.  Shouldn't I have more to show for six months? Shouldn't I feel a bit further along with what I wanted to achieve by now, why don't I feel little lighter or more on top of things?

Both feelings, the relief and the guilt, were real. Neither cancelled the other out. 

For some of us, the middle of the year means the middle of winter.  A pile of end-of-financial-year admin. And for others it's the start of a hot, kid-filled summer. Either way, it puts a marker down, whether we are ready or not.

What the guilt tends to actually be about

Underneath it all, the guilt is rarely about the calendar. It's usually about an old, tired story: the one that says struggling should look like something. If this year's felt hard without an obvious turning point, that story insists you must have got the approach wrong somewhere.

It gets sharper the moment someone else's six months looks like it landed somewhere. A finished renovation, or a friend's "best year yet" post showing up in your feed at exactly the wrong moment. Their year having a shape doesn't mean yours needed one too.

Maybe it's the resolution you set back in January and haven't thought about since March. There's a gentler way to look at that one, too: there can be relief in it as well, not just guilt. Relief at not having to carry it around anymore.

Whichever version shows up for you, here's what I've noticed, again and again, working with people carrying a lot. Most people have been trying this whole time, genuinely trying and the problem was never effort.  The load hasn't let up long enough for the trying to actually land anywhere.  So, a body under pressure for six months straight barely gets the opportunity to really settle.

Why this isn't a sign something's wrong with you

None of this means you're behind. It doesn't mean you've handled the year badly, either. Six months of carrying a full plate is six months of carrying a full plate, whether it left you with a neat little before and after, or not.

So maybe try holding this instead: relief doesn't need a receipt. You're allowed to feel it without earning it first. That's what permission to rest actually means, even if it's easy to forget to apply it to yourself.

If any of this is landing for you, you're not alone in it, and you're definitely not doing the year wrong. Right now, a lot of us are standing in exactly this spot: quietly relieved, and quietly a bit unsettled, about the very same six months.

If you want to sit with this feeling a bit longer, Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks does it better than most. It's essentially a whole book on why we were never going to feel caught up in the first place, and somehow that ends up being the comforting part. Find out why here.