Full-Time Vacation-- A Good Thing?

I thought about this post (two posts, really) yesterday. Tom's been gone 5 weeks, there are 3 more to go, and my, my, my... Ol' Debra needs to return to balance before she can't even lift herself from the couch anymore.  :)


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"A good vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work."    ~Morris Fishbein



There is a Berenstain Bear book called, Too Much Vacation, and a young Naomi adored that book. We all did, actually, and we'd even return home from vacation, drop our suitcases, collapse into chairs and collectively moan, "Too much vacation!", each recalling the tired ol' Berenstain family.

Too much driving/riding/staying up late. Too much living inside a tent, too much swimming, museums, fast food and hiking and getting lost and folding maps and--

Basically, too much thinking only of ourselves.

And then yesterday, once again, I had that Too Much Vacation feeling. Oh, I hadn't been in a tent these last 10 days nor traveled or visited any museums. No, but I'd been thinking mostly about Myself On Vacation. "How little can I get away with doing today? And what else can I do for myself that will make me more comfortable/happy/entertained?"

Then yesterday I got sick of it. Enough is enough and I'd had enough.

Why do we think full-time vacation would be a good thing? Because we are naive. Because we've not yet fully learned to love our average days. Our life. Our work.

There's something that begins to creep in when you always get to do whatever you want. It's a bit like selfishness, spoiledness and unappreciation  and you begin taking things for granted because, suddenly, there's nothing contrary going on. No stretching oneself beyond what's easy, no responding to discipline's healthy voice.

It's like Spring arrived, yet you didn't notice or care because, this year, Winter was just strings of warm, sunny days and why celebrate now that you have more of the same ol' same ol'?

Vacation, getting everything you want, when you want, tastes so good--at first. But then, those days eventually turn bubble-less. Flat. Giving only to oneself always tastes stale when stretched beyond grace, for real joy is found in giving to you, you, you--not to me, me, me. At least not in wild, long strings of unbalance.

But this Back to Normal Day? Already it tastes better, wholesome, yet more delightful than a million vacation days. There's a lot to be said for a balanced diet. There's a lot to be said for giving of oneself rather than to oneself.

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"Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks."   ... Ecclesiastes 10:18


"To everything there is a season, a time for every activity under the heavens ... a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them."   ... Ecclesiastes 3:1,5

Sometimes I think I don't need a vacation because I do what I like to do. I am very fortunate!

Enric Sala

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Free Kindle books:


Balanced: Finding Center as a Work at Home Mom

A Trip to the Hardware Store and Other Calamities

Is It God or Am I Crazy?