The One Day Vacation That Will Change Your Life?

To be honest with you going on vacation is hard for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love relaxing, spending time lounging about, swimming in the ocean, and all the others things that go along with going on vacation. But it’s hard for me because going on vacation takes facing a fear I have that if I’m not constantly working, driving, and tinkering in my business everything will fall apart.

The Juggler Complex

The Juggler complex is a tendency I’ve noticed in many of my clients and myself. The basic idea is that in order to be successful or avoid certain tragedy, you must always be moving, reacting, or juggling your life. If you turn away for a moment, an instant, or even longer all the balls will fall to the ground as you weep in the fetal position.

Ok so maybe it’s not that dramatic but it feels like it is.

Getting caught up in this complex is scary. Because if everything in your life depends on your constant vigilance then you can never rest. But this simply isn’t the case for most of us. In truth, our lives are balanced among so many other people that even if we disappeared completely, much of it would go on with out us.

Coffee would get made, decisions would get sorted, and peoples live would flow forward without our input. And this is one of the reasons it’s so important to take vacation. Vacations show us that when we step out of life, the deeds we’ve done continue without our presence.

The companies we started function in our absence, the friendships we have are maintained without our constant attention, and the lives we build do not collapse even though we are gone.

Vacations show us that while we are important the structure we have built around us is not made of sand.Still stepping out like this can be scary and that’s why so many of us take work on vacation and remained tethered to our phones. But being scared is ok.

One Day Vacation

So I’d like to give you a challenge. I’d like for each of you to take a one day no phone, email, and calendar vacation sometime this month. (I’m taking mine tomorrow)

On that one day put your phone on airplane mode, keep your email closed, and don’t look at your calendar. It will be hard but it will be worth it. Because what it will help you see is that the world needs you, but it doesn’t need you every single day of your life.

O14A0464

 

One thought on “The One Day Vacation That Will Change Your Life?

  1. Often when reading similar articles I wonder just how strange I am.

    I read about this quite a lot, how one should try to have time without checking mails, turn off the phone sometimes, go without internet for a day or on the weekend etc.

    My phone is on mute except in those very rare instances when I expect a call. I aim to check my email every two days but often settle for checking once a week and sometimes go without checking it for a few weeks. And my calender is empty. Ok, this was my private stuff, it’s different for my work phone, mail and calendar, but I don’t check or answer those on evenings or weekends.

    People who want to reach me know that email is best though they may have to wait a couple of days for an answer. I usually have the phone on when I have an appointment with someone so I can be reached in case of a delay, change of plans etc. or when I agreed with someone that we’d talk on the phone at a certain time. Oh, and I often hear that I’m hard to reach. 😉

    So a day without mail, phone and calender will surely not change my life, I have days like that all the time.

    Now I wonder: Am I completely weird? Or are there others like me?

Comments are closed.