Who has time for vacation?
No one but losers and slackers! You’ll rest once you’ve “made it,” right?
That’s still the unspoken creed.
You COULD take some time off… but what would your boss think? Your employees? Your business partner?
Besides… family vacations are usually the clusteriest of cluster fucks anyways, a constant juggling of everyone’s needs and wants and vacation fantasy fulfillments. All but your own, that is.
YES, taking vacation is like carving off a chunk of your own flesh: it’s painful and unnecessary and oozes for days.
Do it anyways.
It WILL be painful.
There WILL be moments (or hours or days) of that vacation time that will be horrendous.
Times where you feel the biggest fool in the world for trading in productive time at work for screaming toddlers spiking your blood pressure as you drive the RV over the mountain pass.
But mixed in with all that mayhem will be the moments:
The swim down the rapids in the Idaho creek.
The frayed rope swing that somehow doesn’t break when you swing down whooping into the lake.
The smell of woodsmoke and graham crackers on your two year old’s blanket.
Through the lens of a lifetime, none of my vacations were failures. Even though some felt like it at the time.
There are always sufficient compensations.
So go unplug.
Pack your bags.
Embrace the madness.
Make sure to schedule in stuff YOU want to do, too: the three days doing jack shit in the cabin by the lake. Whatever recharges your batteries.
Do it all with the knowledge that no matter how carefully you plan, no matter how strategically you weave in “dad’s pick” elements… it will be chaos, madness and the occasional gnashing of teeth.
Regardless, it will be the best thing you do all month.
So hit the road, Jack.
You very well may save my life, quite literally, and metaphorically. Thank you for being here. You are the slap in the face I needed.