By Jamie Kirk
Taking a vacation is one of the most rewarding things you can do. Vacations can be relaxing, stressful, rewarding, cheap, or expensive! But most of all vacations can be needed. Â
Traditionally even as children, we have been taught that vacations are “breaks” or “escapes” from reality. They tend to happen when we were out of school or celebrating a holiday. Vacations have most always been positioned as a time to let it all go and leave all your cares behind. I would like to shift our thinking just a bit, just to see if we can actually do some internal work while basking in the sun.
It is so very important that as vacations are planned, deposits are paid, and group trips begin to come together, that we keep on the forefront of our brains that life will not stop just because we are in Bora Bora. When the plane hits the tarmac back in our home city, our issues and concerns hit the runway with a loud thud. The type of thud that you hear when your upstairs neighbors’ flat screen falls off the wall, due to poor mounting (oops, I digress). So even though we may come back nice and tanned, souvenirs for friends and tons of selfies, the truth of the matter is that our LIFE is waiting to be picked back up. LIFE wants to be picked up right where you left it.  LIFE will not go away just because we did. LIFE crap (good and bad) is still waiting to be tended too. So why not take LIFE with you and sort it out.
The point I am trying to make is that I believe we need to take our troubles, issues, concerns, problems and money woes with us on vacation. Instead of throwing caution to the wind, maxing out our credit cards, renting a convertible instead of a compact car, we exercise care and control while on vacation so that we don’t get further behind the eight ball, in whatever area we need to focus. Making sure we do an inventory of LIFE stuff and making a checklist to take with us should not be ludicrous, but welcoming to meet and greet our situations head-on with solution tactics. This kinda sounds ridiculous but let me explain my logic.
When we are on vacation, we should be mostly away from the reminders. Away from the late payments, childcare concerns, family drama, car repairs, dental woes and someplace that is unfamiliar and feels like a million miles away.
But taking our baggage in our luggage (I like that), we can sort things out in a calming and serene environment. We can be quiet and strategically come up with a plan B or even a plan C to execute. I realize the key to a vacation is to leave our troubles behind, but each unaddressed area in our life will be waiting for us at baggage claim. When we can be still and silent, we allow the answer to come to us. We can see options more clearly and not feel so overwhelmed. There is power in the stillness of our thoughts.
I think that the best approach is to actually have an approach on how to handle our little life wrinkles. What better time to sort out our life, than when we are on vacation. The definition of vacation could (should?) be altered from “the action of leaving something one previously occupied,” to “the reaction of responding to something one previously experienced with a calming approach and calculated measures to address or resolve.”
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Jamie Kirk works for a software company and is a certified spinning instructor. He also enjoys yoga, swimming, bicycling and running. He aspires to start a blog about what we put in our bodies not only fuels our body but our mind and spirit as well. Follow Jamie on IG @tysonsdad.