When folks find out that I have just returned from Hawaii, one of the first things they ask is “Did you spend a lot time on the beach?” I simply answer “No, there were too many other things to do.” However, because I don’t want to offend their beach fantasies, I refrain from telling them my bottom line “I don’t need, nor desire, to fly half way around the world just to sit on a lousy beach no matter how beautiful and serene that beach may be.”
I know it sounds like heresy to say this, but sitting around ensconced on a beach, seems to me the ultimate waste of time. This is doubly true particularly when there are other things to do or see. A beach is nice no doubt but I don’t need to camp out on it to appreciate it.
As I look back on my vacations thru the years, I see where there was a time when I could and did do the veg vacation. Back then I was working full time, chauffeuring kids here and there and renovating a house in whatever spare time I could carve out. Thus, a week or two vacation of doing absolutely nothing actually appealed to me.
However, even back then, I made it a point of doing something as I did nothing, if that makes any sense. I would divide my vacation day between doing something in the a.m. and then squatting on the beach in the p.m. Some days I would vary my schedule and start out on the beach early but then go do something later on. It was very, very rare that I actually camped out all day on the beach.
Now, being semi-retired and recognizing that my get up and go has got up and gone, I think of Dylan’s line “Yesterday everything was going too fast, today it’s moving too slow.” Thus, I kind of look forward to doing nothing – someday. As long as I can make a move, I plan to keep moving whether on vacation or back in the hood doing life.
On this subject of do-nothing vacations, the WSJ recently had a good article discussing the pro’s and con’s of it (click here.) Dierks Bentley also has a good take on it.
