Vacations are important, they really are, and I’m addressing all you type A achievers out there. Keep in mind that a trip is not always a vacation. The point of a vacation is to relax and to achieve a downstate for your body and mind. This is not the same as an awesome adventure, which we also like, but these are different things. One is very much of an upstate for your nervous system and the other is the opposite.
We can often forget to take vacations, as we are waiting for the most opportune moment to pull the trigger to finally downshift. This is not a great idea. Vacations are up there with your yearly physical — an essential part of your health and well-being. As such, they need to be scheduled and planned, hopefully months in advance. I remember the first time the NY Times called me for a cover shoot; I was scheduled to leave on vacation that week and, although it caused me considerable internal dissonance, I turned it down — my vacation was more important. I also went on to do a dozen or more covers for them — my FOMO, as always, was completely unfounded.
My request to all of you this week is that when you look at your calendar for the summer and the rest of the year, I would like you to see some real downtime blocked out for a true vacation along with some plans for what that will look like. I am writing this because here in the world of never-miss-an-issue digital publishing, if I am asking all of you to do this, I better have some downtime scheduled this summer for all of us here, too. Walk the talk is how we roll at AGEIST — so let’s all book some time with family, friends, or solo, to make some lovely peaceful downtime. We all deserve it.
Until next week,
David
