When we think of vacation or holiday, images of plane rides and palm trees immediately spring to mind; and, depending on your age, certain songs might pop up. Those in my generation, Gen X, might think back to high school and the wonderful loooong summer break.
Songs like Will Smith’s, Summertime and Madonna’s, Holiday have fond memories attached to them. For a younger generation, Ding Dong’s, Holiday may be more appropriate or Vybz Kartel’s, Summertime.
Whatever your jam, one thing remains constant; we all look forward to our vacation. A time to get away from work, school, the boss, whoever or whatever that slowly became the source of your stress and the bane of your existence.
So, since we all look forward to this exquisite necessity in our lives, why do we consistently sabotage it from the very start? You may be saying, ‘sabotage, I don’t sabotage it. How do I sabotage it?’
Let me tell you how. By counting the days til it’s over. On the first morning of this blissful time, we wake up feeling refreshed, filled with vim, vigour and vitality; however, by day two, most of us begin this self-deflating process of starting a clock.
It goes something like this;
‘I need to get everything done by next week Thursday, because I’m resting the following week so I can be fresh for work.’
Or
‘I should have taken more than eight days, because two of those are going to be spent travelling, plus I need time to pack; that’s not going to leave enough time to visit aunt Mavis and my brother in another state.’
Or
‘I can just imagine the amount of work they’re going to leave on my desk; it’s just going to suck out every bit of rest I’m going to get now’
You get the picture.
We start thinking about the end before we begin enjoying our time off. And everyday after that, our anxiety increases; counting down the days til it’s over, while missing the subtle joys that make a vacation memorable in the first place.
You see, we don’t miss everything, but we do miss important things. Sure, we’ll remember visiting grandma, and cousin Andrew laughing so hard he snorted soup through his nose, but we missed the joke, because we were obsessing about the weight of our luggage or work piling up on our desk or the dreaded unpacking and sorting all the things we promised to bring back, for the same coworkers leaving the pile on your desk. The same coworkers stealing your vacation time.
Pause. Let’s take a breath.
Read these next few lines carefully:
“There is freedom in knowing you can survive anything and there is humility in knowing anything can survive you.”
Now, I want you to let that sink in.
We all are guilty of two things and some stage in our lives.
One, we think we are not enough. Not strong enough, not good enough, not smart enough, not brave enough. Truth is, we are capable, of anything. When we accept that, we can be unstoppable.
Two, we sometimes think the world revolves around us, and without us in it, everything would end, when in fact, it only ends for us. The world goes on. We take on so much responsibility for things that happen around us, that it weighs us down; keeps us from becoming our best selves. When we realise that things will happen with or without us, that’s freedom, because now, we can just do, just be, without the burden of wondering who, what, when or how our actions affect.
Once we proceed with a pure mind and heart, the right things will happen, we have to believe that, otherwise we’ll be counting days til the end, and forget to enjoy the middle.
So, the point of all this babble is; it’s okay to lose track of time sometimes, forget what day it is, forget about passwords and reports and piles and piles of work, they’re not going anywhere, you are. You are going on vacation. Enjoy it. Remember it. Tell it to those that matter, or to those you just love to piss off.
Here’s hoping that your next vacation/holiday will be successful.
Bye.
Thanks for indulging my ramblings. If you enjoyed my deliberations, be sure to check out my thriller novels The Martial Art and On Jamaica Government Service on various platforms. They’re available in eBook, Paperback and Hardcover, and Audiobooks coming soon.
However, if you’re having commitment issues, check out my FREE short story, The Martial Art Origins: Severance, available as a free download.
Keep Reading. Cheers.
Dane