Why we should live like we’re on holidays, every day.

Do you remember what it feels like to have nothing to do? You might have felt it 6 months ago when you took that weeks holiday?

Or perhaps you haven’t felt that true ‘holiday feeling’ since your school days? Where unplanned days and weeks stretched before you with endless possibilities.

Somewhere along the line, as adults, even our holidays get highjacked with ‘busy’ and we certainly don’t allow ourselves that feeling of having nothing to do on a daily basis.  There is always too much to do, too many people to see, things to achieve, to stop and do nothing.  

I love that feeling of nothing more than anything else and in many ways the time’waiting for baby’ has been very similar.  No plans. No responsibilities (other than Eamon but he has been super cruisy lately and is happy to just hang around playing and reading and perfecting his nursery rhyme singing.)  Nothing to worry or stress about (sure I could find something like that fact that our house is still 1/2 finished but I’m over it. It is what it is…)

It feels like we’ve been on an endless holiday and I’ve found myself naturally doing things I wouldn’t normally do unless I was actually on holiday.

+ Eating breakfast in the morning sun.

+ Reading countless books.

+ Late afternoon walks to the beach.

+ Late pieced-together-dinners and even later bedtimes.

+ BBQ dinners at the park or beach.

+ Art.

+ Daily naps

+ Just sitting and watching. No book. No phone. No conversation.

Which made me think.  If all of this feels so good, why do I wait for holidays to do it?  Why do I restrict the ‘good stuff’ for those few weeks of the year.  What a waste!  When I look back on my life 50 years from now I do not want to be thinking ‘I wish I’d spent more time doing…(insert any of the above).’ And I’m pretty bloody sure I won’t be thinking ‘ I wish I’d spent more time trawling Facebook’.

And sure, once ‘real life’ returns there will be less time for all of these things (even though I’m not sure what ‘real life’ even looks like anymore- I’m sure I’ll find out soon).  But I’m going to keep these holiday feelings going, even if some days I can only manage to find 10 minutes.  Because how this feels is far more important than most of the things on my to do list.

And by some strange time warp, when we slow down to do these things we seem to have more time to do all the things.  I’m not sure if its because we are more relaxed and just feel less frantic, or because taking the time out means we prioritise better?  But whatever the explanation I’m going with it.

So I’d like to ask you… what activities make you feel like you’re on holidays?  And can you include them in your every day to recapture just a piece of that holiday feeling?