“There’s a simple rule to a sustainable life: Work hard, then take a good vacation, then work hard again and take a good vacation again… don’t break this order!”
Mehmet Murat Ildan
There is a lady who does my hair for my vacations. I like to call her my vacation hairdresser, she is really skilled at doing cornrows and twists which I consider to be perfect for vacation. Once when she was doing my hair she asked me where I was traveling to this time. She knows that whenever she sees me it means I am going somewhere. We discussed my travels a bit and then she revealed to me that she doesn’t have a passport and she has never left the country. When I asked her why, she had every excuse in the world, the kids, her business (she didn’t want to lose clients), she was scared of planes, she doesn’t trust most of these foreign countries. It’s one thing if she just didn’t like to travel, but I could see the joy in her eyes when I recounted my adventures, it felt almost like it’s something she would love to do, but she had already convinced herself that it wasn’t for her, and she had all the excuses to support this. This attitude towards travel is something I see all the time. Many people consider travel to be a luxury and not a necessity. I see travel as necessary for a sustainable life.
A 2006 Study by Ernst & Young uncovered that performance reviews were higher by 8% for every additional 10 hours of vacation that employees took, when compared to their performance the previous year. There is also the Framingham Heart Study. 750 women with no prior heart disease were followed over 20 years. The results showed that the women who took less vacation were twice as likely to get a heart attack compared to those who took more.
For me, I find that though I appreciate an orderly life, I need to break the cycle in a big way at least twice a year. The cycle- breaker is always a vacation. If I don’t travel then I may slide into mild depression. A 2005 study of 15,000 women discovered that their risk for depression reduced greatly as they took more vacation. so if you are going through a hard time a vacation might just be what you need to get your groove back. Please note that you do not need to leave the country to have a good vacation. If you’re on a tight budget, you can go explore a city close to you, take the train or a bus but go get lost somewhere.
Here are some reasons why you should travel just in case what I said above hasn’t convinced you.
Traveling enhances your creative thinking
We all have a perspective and a way we do things, influenced by our family, cultures and experiences. Most of us have done the same thing the same way for years, we have become inflexible and unable to think creatively. Immersing yourself in a new culture allows you to appreciate new ways of doing things, another added layer is, you may even learn new things that can influence your job when you get back into the office.
Vacation allows you to have a helicopter view of your life
When you’re in something or close to something it is very difficult to see all the angles and the full picture. If you step back from it, then the picture becomes bigger and you get to see all the moving parts and can make decisions that will improve the whole, instead of the thing you’re close to. This is what vacation does, it allows you step back from your life and view the whole. I remember I had a job I hated, many times I thought of quitting on the spot. Whenever I went on vacation I was able to think things through, I had goals and plans and I had to keep the job to make all these plans happen. It was also on vacation that I made a thorough plan to exit the job.
You begin to Appreciate your life
Many of us have the tendency to think our problems are bigger than everything else. When we travel we gain perspective. I am from Jamaica, so I am well aware of what struggling in a third-world country is like. The hospitals are sub par and there are people who wake up everyday and have nothing to eat, and no access to basic necessities. Every time I start to grumble too long about a problem, I try to remember those things. I lived with an aunt who didn’t have water in the pipes. When water finally came we had to rush to fill up every plastic bottle we could find. There was also a drum outside that we had to fill with water. The water would then stop. To wash the dishes we would fill a container from the drum of water outside and bring it into the house. To flush the toilet we would fill a bucket of water and pour it into the toilet until it flushed. I know a lot of you don’t know that trick, but if you can’t flush your toilet, call me. haha
Builds Confidence
Traveling builds your confidence, especially if you travel by yourself. When you plan your trip and take your adventure, it is empowering and empowerment builds confidence. This will improve the way you do your job, and interact with co-workers. You have been to places all by yourself, dialogued with different people, you are powerful and mighty.
Increases your Awareness
I have had many conversations over the years with people who have lived in the United States who do not travel, and I get the same answers, whenever there is discussion about issues going on around the world. They don’t seem to care if it doesn’t directly affect them. I have found the same reaction when I read the Jamaica Observer. They will report on international news and a number of people will comment about it. The sentiments are, why is the newspaper not reporting the local news, they don’t want to read about what’s going on outside of Jamaica. What we all fail to understand is that everything affects us in some way because of globalization. The price of gas is high everywhere guess why? There is a famous quote by Chief Seattle that I love “Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.” This represents how connected we all are, and why it’s important to take care of each other. When we immerse ourselves into different cultures and among different people we develop empathy and understanding and this is what will motivate us to make changes that will benefit the human race.
Thank you for reading. let us know if we missed anything.
