How has your attitude towards your holidays changed throughout the years?
I’m coming from a place where most of my holidays in the last 10-15 years were spent just trying to recharge my batteries. I felt pretty burnt out and had a hard time moving out of the comfort zone of how I imagined I should be recuperating from the entire year. My ideal holiday was: reading and drinking beer at the seaside... and that’s it. Day trips and excursions, no thank you. As little movement as possible, actually. Also, thinking about work throughout + bothering others with it.
“My holidays were spent trying to recharge my batteries.”
Same as the rest of the year - passive
I remember the eagerness of going on holidays as a kid. So much anticipation. The feeling that every day was going to be a new adventure. So when did the change happen? How did the feeling of excitement of going on holidays get replaced by the NEED to just lie down and wait until I’m suitable to return to the hustle back in the real world? It’s like not choosing the fun of going to a friend’s birthday party as a kid, but choosing to go on a 14 day sick leave instead, where you need to just wait until that nasty cold goes away. Why then?
”I was there basically just to react”
Trying to uncover the antidote for this, I’ve come to realize that my holidays were spent in the same manner as the rest of my year – passively. Kafka’s heroes come to mind as a comparison, as it always seems that things are happening TO them. I’ve been Josef K. for as long as I can remember, and my life and my thoughts were just happening to me. I was there basically just to react. So going on a two week long hibernation every year to cure the effects of being burnt out seemed like a good idea at the time.
Generally changing my approach to life to a more active one managed to remind me how exhilarated I was for some things as a kid. And reliving an emotion is like using a muscle. If you train it enough, it’ll be that much easier to use/recall. I knew there’d be hiccups going in, but having added a pinch of elation and more presence to this year’s holiday, I must confess that it was much more pleasant and rejuvenating than the zombified ones. So we did go on day trips. We did go on excursions. I read only two paragraphs and drank less beer. And I’m happy to say that it was also the first holiday that I managed not to think about work or talk about it with my family. Yaaay!