A Letter from Chris Suarez
A VACATION IS NOT WHAT YOU NEED
Many people are headed home from a long weekend they called vacation or perhaps a quick escape.
Some 3 million Americans took to the air this past weekend to get to their vacation destination. That Is 50% fewer than a year ago, but the most people we’ve seen pass through TSA since March of 2020. Some 48 million other Americans took to the highways, freeways, or railways this weekend for a short escape.
There is no judgement in either of these statements. My family contributed 4 Americans to the roadway traffic as we spent a few days at our home in Cannon Beach, Oregon. I got some work, writing, a few interviews, and recording done, while the girls got some school work done, we spent some time together outdoors, the dog enjoyed the beach, and I even caught up on some podcasts I wanted to listen to and a few books I’ve been wanting to read for a research project i’m working on.
Now although there was no judgement towards those that boarded planes, trains, and buses amidst a pandemic, I am certain there is some judgement around me slipping the words “work”, and “writing”, and “interviews”, and “research” into the statement above and into the family weekend. But I neither called my weekend a vacation or an escape. Where-as many people look for and probably need both vacations and escapes from their everyday jobs, lives, and schedules, I have often talked about the goal of living integrated lives.
To me an integrated life allows space to blend all areas of our life into any given day, week or month. A few years back I wrote about what I believe to be the Six Pillars of an experiential life:
Career
Relationships
Personal Growth
Wealth
Health
Spirituality
On any given weekday or weekend I will allow any of these pillars, and often all of them, to show up. If we need a vacation or an escape from something in our life, that may be a good sign that one of these pillars needs some reinforcing. It might be time for some foundational support to that pillar.
If we get to a place that we feel we really need a “vacation” from work, it may be a sign that we have stopped living an integrated life or that the work we do has begun to encroach on life itself. Perhaps we have not given enough time or importance to our Personal Relationships or our Health or our Spirituality. Any one of those, or perhaps all three, are screaming for attention. There-in lies the belief that you need a vacation, or the overwhelm that begins to internally drive you to an escape.
If we are living an integrated life, we give ourselves permission to blur the lines of the day. That may look like meditating and praying before the sun rises, investing some focused time on our career and wealth building in the morning, slipping away in the afternoon for a family hike or walk on the beach with our partner, reading a book or even watching a movie with the kids in the evening, and doing some planning and strategy before going to bed at night… feeling fulfilled and accomplished. That could be the plan for a work day or play day. The problem arises when we spend too many 12 or 13 hours days in a row all focused on our career or wealth. Oftentimes those hours are spent doing things we don’t like to do, within industries we don’t like to be in, with people we don’t like to work with, for a comp plan we don’t like to trade our time for. And suddenly “we need a vacation” or we just really need “a quick escape”.
The word “escape” is defined as “to break free from confinement or control.”
The word “vacation” comes from the root word “vacate”, which is from the Latin word, “vacare”. Literally it means “the action of leaving something previously occupied.” It means “to be empty, to be free, to be unoccupied.”
Do we need to go on “vacation” in order to break free from something at home? Do we feel that something at home is controlling us? Controlling our time? Controlling our minds? What do we find ourselves longing to leave? What are we running from? Do we feel confined?
If so, breaking free from that confinement for a couple days or even a couple weeks won’t fix that. We will be in a car, or bus, or train or plane heading back to that feeling in no time. Something needs to change.
Instead, we need to begin integrating our life. Look at each of the six pillars of an integrated and experiential life. Where do they each fit in our day, in our week, in our month? We can’t call it a pillar of our life if we only focus on it on the weekend, think about it on Sundays, or work on it while on vacation. If something is integrated, it means that “individual parts, when brought together, complete the whole.” It takes combining those parts to build something larger, our whole day or our whole life. Those six pillars will combine and build a large life.
It means that while away for the weekend, or vacationing with the family, you need not feel guilty taking a work call, spending a morning or an afternoon working on the business, or reading that book on tax strategy. In the same vein, if your Tuesday or Wednesday or Friday doesn’t allow for time in the gym, or eating meals with the family, or reading and research on topics that interest you, then your career may be overstepping it’s place as a pillar in your life.
This has been a strange year. Outside of a three day weekend this summer camping in Central Oregon, my family and I have not been on a “vacation” in 2020. Keep in mind, the 4 years prior, we have lived out of the country for at least three months out of each year. I know we are not alone. And with that, I don’t feel as if I “need a vacation.” Because whether we are at home, at the coast, in the city, or out of the country, we actively architect an integrated life. We are constantly making a concerted effort to continue building the six pillars into each of our days.
Flying somewhere or driving somewhere for a break of course doesn’t imply that something is wrong. At times, it’s the best possible thing for us to do - to get a change of scenery, of perspective, of pace, of rhythm. But if you have to get away, ask what you have to get away from. If you need to escape, ask what you need to escape from.
Give yourself permission to integrate work and play. Take time to play on your work days. Take time to work on your play days. This year has brought with it almost a forced integration of work and play. Initially we may believe that has caused exhaustion. But we will always experience a bit of exhaustion when doing new things or learning new skills. In reality, it could be the greatest gift we have all received as our perspective has been forced to change.
A vacation is not what we need. A little bit of life-work integration will do us well.
Chris