I get really annoyed when people say they want to just “get away from it all”. It’s not that I don’t like to travel; I actually do. The part that irritates me is what I call the “vacation mentality”. It’s the mentality that life blows and then we go on vacation and that is where we have fun and enjoy life. In other words, we spend most of our lives being miserable and then a few weeks a year really enjoying life. If you are really lucky, you end up with 3 or maybe 4 weeks of vacation a year in most corporate jobs or as an entrepreneur. I think that whole idea is just ass backwards.
I have a different idea. I think that the key to a happy and successful life is to actually build a life that you love so much, you don’t want to go on vacation. Do things you enjoy; find a way to make a living doing something you absolutely love and be done with it. There are a crapload of books written on that subject. I wish I could say I was “there”, but I’m certainly not. I have a long way to go to get my life completely structured in such a way that I love doing everything that I do. Hell, I’ll probably never get there, but I’ll damn sure never stop trying.
When you love your life, you don’t want to get away from it. But! . . . when you do it is immensely refreshing and inspiring. I’ve had the opportunity to be removed from my normal circumstances twice in the past two months. I am astounded by the amount of perspective that I come back with. There is simply something about being out of my normal element that puts everything in perspective and just makes me think more clearly. I spent a good part of April in New Mexico visiting some family and taking care of some business. It was not really a vacation, but it did place me outside of my normal environment and routine and I came to a huge realization while there. I was thinking about the things I had going on in my businesses and realized that I was completely unfocused. I was trying to do too many things and not making enough progress on any single one. So, I used some of the time to re-organize my priorities. It was great to really get focused again and I’m making great progress toward those goals since then.
Image Credit: Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
The Blog of Jeff Steinmann 