Vacation at Home – Part 1 

Spirit of adventure, cultivating gratitude, love of place, conserving resources, being authentic, staying curious, keeping it simple, creating systems that liberate . . . 

A State of Consciousness 

I have spent a lot of money and time on carefully planned vacations in faraway places.  I haven’t always returned home rested, happy and rejuvenated.  Often I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel.  Sometimes I was anxious through much of it and couldn’t get settled.  Maybe it was too planned without enough room for spontaneity.  For whatever reason, it wasn’t as much fun as I had envisioned.  I had wasted that precious time and I wouldn’t get another big vacation for a whole year.  If I have to wait that long I started wondering how I might be lighthearted, curious, interested and engaged in what I was doing in my everyday life.   

It’s not so much that I wanted another vacation.  I wanted that joyful feeling of living in the moment, carefree and at ease.  I wanted that state of being where I was finally content, sated, no longer hungering for the next thing.  Isn’t that the true spirit of vacation?  It is not about what I do or where I go, but how I do it.  Vacation is not a place, it’s an experience.  It’s an experience I can’t force, I receive.  It is a whole new way of being in the world.  Vacation is a state of consciousness.   

I realized that I could learn how to savor my environment and get absorbed in that joyous way.  I could learn how to notice the beauty and the splendor that is right before me every day.  I could learn how to minimize the time pressures, the deadlines, the stress that robs me of joy, the needless errands and empty social engagements.  I could learn how to add luxury to my daily routine and feel like I’m on vacation while moving through an ordinary day.  

There are a lot of different ways to be creative.  Some of you create art, music, characters and stories.  I create experiences.  I realized that one of the ways I am creative is living life well and living it resourcefully; walking lightly, simplifying, lightening the burden of too much stuff, minimizing obligations and maximizing the time for play. There is an art to living life well and it is worth cultivating.  What could be a more lofty purpose than developing fullness of life?  

I have always craved experiences of deep meaning; I want to live a life of purpose; to keep learning, to stay curious, and broaden my perspective.  I want to live with a sense of adventure and unlimited possibility.  I realized that the most ordinary day can be special, new, electric and full of promise when I am on vacation at home.