“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Seth Godin
This resonates with me. Now single, I look back on the last 10 years, where holidays had crept up to 2-3 months a year. The planning and experience helped me to deal with my life and make it bearable.
But now – over 9 months on my own, and I realised that my holidays were my means of escape and I no longer want to have long holidays. I’ll still travel, but for now I have a happy life. I like my job, have made good friends and have plenty of interests so my life is good.
I remember one of my clients Jemma. She had a high-powered job, her salary now would be over £80k but she compensated for the stress by spending money on meals out, loads of presents for the children and expensive holidays. A year later she had a change of career – worked locally with a significant drop in salary, and no longer needed these holidays. Her life was enough. I’m not saying don’t have holidays … most of us enjoy the experience of going away but when it is the only thing that keeps you going in your job, maybe you need to rethink the work that you do.
For me it is about enjoying life every day, not only enjoying life when on holiday, and living for my holiday.
I want to be happy with my life so that I don’t feel a need to escape.
This means having friends, good friends and spending time with them and being there for them. It is also about doing what is right for me and protecting myself from people that don’t bring me joy and put me down. I know that I need time for me as well as being a good friend.
It’s understanding the simple things that make me happy. I don’t need to go to expensive gigs and events. I’m just as happy watching local bands and going to free gigs at one of my local pubs – but if they have CDs for sale, I buy them.
How happy are you with your life? And if it could be better maybe we need to talk?
