Earlier this week, Ms. Our Next Life published an article, What We’ve Learned From Living Where Everyone Else Is On Vacation. It resonated with me because we live in a vacation destination.
What I found interesting is that she wrote it from a mountain vacation perspective. I had a conversation with my 4-year old that he isn’t seeing snowy mountains. They simply aren’t on our island in Rhode Island. Our vacation area might be islands instead mountains, but as my 3-year old says, “In some ways we are different… But in so many ways, we are the same.”
I’d like to think that I inspired the article with my article about who buys airplane nips last week. (And if you are reading this, Ms. ONL, and it wasn’t the inspiration, tell me sweet little lies.)
Slow Down
I think the main theme of the article is to slow down (or “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”).
That reminds me of an old commercial:
(It was years before I’d step inside a Roy Rogers and I don’t think I’ve ever bought food there. Never underestimate the power of jingles… my 4 year old is marketing OxiClean and Clorox to me.)
And because I often think in threes, I can’t leave out Jack Johnson. (As you are reading this article, I’m listening to Jack Johnson.) I wrote about Jack Johnson for a week for a reason. More than a few of his songs are about getting off the treadmill of life and enjoying nature. (Off the top of my head, there’s “Breakdown” and “Inaudible Melodies.”)
“I got it, already. I’m going slow… so what else?”
Ms. ONL makes a couple of other great points, such as put down the cell phone and talk to people.
But, I’m going to take this back to going slow again.
I used to be one of those grumpy people on vacation trying to schedule everything. I think it was a decade ago, but I chewing out a waiter for the long wait for food. (I’m not proud of it, but we’ve all been there right?) He said words that I won’t forget, “Relax, we’re on island time.”
The concept of “island time” changed my whole perspective. I think that’s why Ms. ONL’s article resonated so much with me. Any time I start to get anxious, I just think, “island time” and it melts away.
Maybe I’ll be one of those rush, rush people again. I can definitely see it happening if a great museum in Europe is closing. I think it depends on the type of vacation. If I’m focusing on seeing all the sights, I can see moving quickly. However, most of my vacations are about island time. On my last vacation to a tiny island my wife and I did talk to locals to find the hidden gems.
After 11 years of writing about personal finance, it seems that much of it leads to rushing to save a pile of money and investing it. I firmly believe that is the best plan if you want to retire early. However, as I get older, I find that the moments I treasure most are the ones when I’m walking a sacred labyrinth with my family.