I recently had a friend mention that I wasn’t taking a real vacation. Was I truly not? I think too often things are determined by others how we should act or do things. In this case what I think a vacation is. This kinda bothered me but it got me thinking about things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A vacation is defined by webster as “a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation” and “a period of exemption from work granted to an employee”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me my work is my love and joy. That doesn’t mean its stress free but it is what I enjoy. How many of us can say we actually enjoy our job? Are we taking a vacation to escape from work or is it to have something different for a week? Spend time with family?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also think it depends on your personality. For me a complete disconnect is more damaging then good. For me I find when I do come back from a complete disconnect I am more stressed and feel like I am doing catchup for a month. On my honeymoon I experienced this. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. Just that when I got back I was stressed. I also sometimes had moments of thinking so much about it during the vacation I was more distracted then if I had read the chat messages. So when I’m back I find myself saying “I need a vacation from coming back from the vacation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me I classify vacations as 3 types\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1- Gone for a day or a few days. This could be during the week or a weekend. Work knows this but as long as its not urgent it doesn’t mater. Email \/ phone calls \/ chats are fine and welcomed. Just know I might take a while to respond but I will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2- A bit longer vacation. Same as #1 but I have more limited time and my vacations time is determined by the group I am with. For example if we are just hanging out at the hotel\/pool then sure I can take a bit of time to help. But if we are doing a tour at 10 and its 9:45 I am probably going to say it has to wait. The main difference is this\u2026. PTO is valuable and I want to use it but not for time I am just sitting around. So if we are just sitting around waiting for the next event I will take things on at that time. My last vacation that I took for a week I had 9 hrs of that time. I can now use that on another vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3- The getaway vacation without interruption. This is extremely rare but needed sometimes even though it might be bad for my personality. I would count my honeymoon for this also an anniversary. For me personally a cruise might fall under this. This is when my time is so valuable that not even work \/ me wanting to work is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I go back to the definition of “vacation” in all 3 of these types I am exempted from work, I can travel, and I am not restricted by any commitments that I didn’t make myself. More importantly I am having the vacation I want and need without adding more stress into my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again love your work. If you don’t find a new job. This reminds me of when I use to work as a System Administratior for my High School. I loved it so much that they had to remind me to do my timecard. Looking back I didn’t get paid my worth and I also rounded hours (less than what I did) all the time. My boss said I know you did more hours. The point is to me it didn’t mater. I enjoyed my job and pay was just the bonus. As an adult yes we have bills to pay and that’s important but money aside I ask the question. Are we working for the enjoyment of what we do or just the pay?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently had a friend mention that I wasn’t taking a real vacation. Was I truly not? I think too often things are determined by others how we should act or do things. In this case what I think a vacation is. This kinda bothered me but it got me thinking about things. A vacation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[28,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stephen-moss.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}