Disclaimer: I love vacations. I really do.
Vacations aren’t achieving what you think they are. If your life was just the way you wanted it, you would only go on vacation for one reason; to experience the richness and diversity the world has to offer.
This is not why most of us take vacations. We want to take a break, reset, refresh, get away.
What is it that we want to get away from? We fool ourselves by thinking we are trying to escape our jobs, our daily tasks, our house cleaning, our commutes, the so-called rat race.
The trouble is, these will be eagerly awaiting our return. Nothing really changes.
We are attempting to escape ourselves, if only for a few days. But rest assured, your mind will travel with you. And the really sticky point is that once you arrive in your hallowed sanctitude, your mind is not burdened by needing to board a return flight to make a quick trip back to work, unmet demands, that pile of laundry, that argument with your sister.
Vacation is a concept, an ideal. It’s a promise to yourself that, for a brief time in the foreseeable future, you will shed the trappings of your everyday thoughts. It’s a promise that will most likely be broken.
It doesn’t have to be this way. If you can accept your today, and every day thereafter, for what it is, you’ll have nothing to escape. Now that’s a challenge! It’s actually THE challenge, for all of us, all the time.
Do this, and vacations will be what they ought to be, an enrichment of your human experience. Then once they are past, the memories can be enriched even more in the telling and re-telling.
Bon voyage!