“Take a break.”  I paid eighty dollars to hear that advice.  Do you know what kind of break I could have had for eighty dollars?  I thought of all the reasons I couldn’t.  I thought of all the hassles, costs and necessary arrangements.  It just didn’t seem worth it.  It felt like too much to burden anyone with.  “If you wait until you have a break down, others will carry the load while you are in the hospital.”  Our therapist didn’t say that exactly.   But, he did say something to bring me to the reality that I was not indispensable.  He also said something that made me realize just how nice four white walls all alone sounded.  A few days of hospitalized insanity sounded attractive, and that was terrifying.  I needed to take a vacation.

I learned an expensive lesson that day.  The same lesson that Bob personifies in What about Bob. Sometimes we all need “a vacation from our problems.”  Even if some of our problems are in our own body, and we can’t leave those behind, we can all find a way to “take a break.”

Voluntary breaks are called vacations.

For those bent on self-improvement, who love to reach for the top, a vacation can seem like a waste of time.  And, there are critical moments when a vacation is totally stupid.  I read about a company whose CEO took a family vacation during a critical business negotiation and the whole company went out of business.  Now that guy probably did not need a vacation, a decision that won him a lot more vacation time than he wanted no doubt.

But when the big, tough moments are locked down, and most of the time, we are not so critical that we can not make arrangements to get away for a while.  Sometimes that break can be as simple as hiding in the closet or letting the world know you are out, not taking the phone calls and having a “stay-cation.”  Other times we need to actually get away, see the world, or get in the car and just keep driving.  My dad especially liked cruises because out there, you don’t even have to get your email.

What’s the value of a vacation?

I dropped out of high school basketball because I never got to play and I was a terrible shot.  I was tired of bench warming.  I decided to focus on other things.  After a year of not playing, I realized something I did not know before.  I loved playing basketball.  And I realized why.  It wasn’t to be the star player, which I wasn’t.  I loved being part of the team.  I loved cheering for my team.  I loved the excitement and the exercise.  I even loved running in to give a starter a break.  Without that year off, I never would have known.  I might have kept playing without the perspective I needed to fully enjoy it and really play my best.

A vacation gives us time to think and not to think.  In one form of meditation, you focus fully on one thing.  Sometimes a vacation is like that.  We need a break from everything else, all the commotion, so we can zero in on and deeply think about or focus on one thing.  That one thing could be a relationship, a process, a solution, an invention, a book you are writing, etc.

Another form of meditation requires not thinking.  It is letting your mind be fully at rest, letting your thoughts drift through or settle into stillness.  Nothing needs fixing or attention.  You just be. Sometimes we need a vacation to stop our minds from beating against the same wall, get some distance, renew, and come back with a fresh perspective.   A vacation should be a rest.

Find your Zest

Recently I got back from a long vacation.  It went by so fast.  I enjoyed time with family.  I slept in.  I visited beautiful places in nature and from my childhood.  I also got up early, hiked up a mountain, and hiked around a city and an amusement park.  It was glorious, even though sometimes it was exhausting.

I came home with a new zest for living my life.  I have renewed interest in caring for my home and yard.  My husband and I had a chance to talk about our future and family goals.  I look forward to more learning and change.  Cooking is fun again.  It reminded me of coming back to basketball, no longer a chore.  I know why I love it and why I choose my everyday activities.

Forced Rest

When we are sick, hurt, unemployed, or business is slow, it is really, really easy to get uncomfortable, impatient, and feel miserable.  But, it is also a great time to take a vacation.  We can just find a way to make the best of it.  In these cases, what other choice do we have?

Success

We need breaks to take a breath and look back, celebrate how far we’ve come, and re-evaluate where we are headed.  I find that these pivot-points in my life where I stop and redirect are invaluable.  We also need breaks for our health and sanity.

There were people who took a break on 9/11.  They didn’t go in to work that morning, even though they should have been there.  And, they are still alive.  My perspective about work and reliability changed slightly that day.  There are critical moments not to work just as there are times we really need to work hard and stay at our task.

We won’t always know when these critical moments are.  But there came a time when we, as a family, were emotionally about to break, again.  I felt the same as I did that morning in the therapist’s office. But instead of making an appointment, I went and checked my children out of school.  I “kidnapped” my husband from work, and we went up into the canyon for a picnic on a beautiful fall afternoon.

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I remember the golden glow of the carpet of leaves.  The perfect temperature.  The children climbing trees.  It was so deliciously beautiful I wondered how we had never really appreciated the area before. We were nearly alone as a family in nature.  We came back renewed, and it didn’t cost us anything.  I haven’t done it since.  It is not a success tip, after all, to play hookey from hard work.  But, I will never, ever regret it.

Sometimes a good vacation is priceless.

May you “take a break” this summer.

Namaste,

DarEll S. Hoskisson