Timetables. Teams meetings. Around-the-clock scheduling from dawn to dusk. Weekend shifts and emails and business calls. A cycling routine that begins at the same time each morning and only ends, perhaps, on Friday evenings.
When does it ever just…end?
While there are those who certainly take their work with them into the evenings, into the weekends, and into their backpacks when they travel, I’ve never been one to buy into the fast-paced, workaholic American lifestyle.
After all, you work to earn a living; you don’t live only to work.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy to stay that way, to not get caught up in the madness of work-life balance. You spend so many hours of your life at work—it’s only natural to prioritize it above anything else.
Yet the goal of life isn’t to generate income, wealth or shareholder value. Maybe it's the Gen Z in me, but it just feels a bit too empty for me.
I’ve been considering the role that travel, especially slower paced, thoughtful travel, plays in resetting our mental states, what we’ve been caught up in consciously or subconsciously.
Getting out of our usual routines, stepping into unfamiliar territory and unusual circumstances, acts as a hard reset for our brains, allowing us to break out of the patterns we might be stuck in and helping us to see that whatever we’ve been doing—bad habits, unsatisfying rhythms, hectic schedules—can change.
All it takes is a single step in the right direction.
Travel is great that way. Even a single day trip to a nearby city can have that effect on a person.
I was recently fortunate enough to take a small day trip by train to a well-known art museum in a much larger city than I’m used to, and it felt like a panacea for the brain fog that I’d accumulated from six months without travel, a much too long winter and a bit of burnout from working hard all those months.
Wandering through the museum with a friend, spending hours there without a care to what might be happening in the news or at work, appreciating priceless works of craftsmanship and passion from around the globe, was like a balm to the tired soul, refreshing my outlook on the world around me.
When I contemplate the American lifestyle (especially with the profusion of global influences found on social media that highlight our differences in work culture compared to other countries), I don’t really enjoy it.
I crave a slower pace, where days are different and life is more flexible, where I’m able to somehow get everything done and yet still find time for the most meaningful things in life.
Traveling reminds me that all it takes is a step in the right direction. You don’t have to move to France or Spain or Greece in order to change your life, in order to bring more peace or calm to your otherwise frantic pace.
A single step could be going outside of your comfort zone, taking some time not to clean your house, but to go to a park and read instead. It could even be something as simple as putting your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ on the weekends.
Taking vacations always makes me contemplate my life outside of the vacation. While Vacation Me is chill as can be, always excited for the day ahead and all the discoveries it might bring, I am also always thinking about my “real life,” the one I live most of the year.
And when I’m on my plane ride, train ride or car ride home, I consider what I might have learned from my particular trip that I can apply to the rest of my life.
My newest lesson? Slow down. There’s no need to rush rush rush…Take a deep breath, and soak it all in. You’re only here once.
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