For years when I have traveled I have treated the whole experience as something to be done as efficiently and quickly as possible. If I were taking a week off I would arrange my flights in the evening so I could work a full day before going. Then I would return at the last minute, often getting home scant hours before having to return to work. My memory is filled with having to run pell-mell through airports to make connecting flights, and I also remember the stress and upset my tight schedule caused. My focus was always on the physical vacation more than the emotional one.
My wife has a much different approach to vacations and travel. She sets things up so that there is time before and after the trip to relax and enjoy just being off. On travel days there isn’t anything else planned so that all energy can be used for the trauma that is modern airplane travel. Her focus is on the emotional vacation more than on the physical one.
In my paradigm emphasis was given to the physical details in a way that made the vacation as stressful emotionally as working. Sure I was gone from work for a period of time but I never got an emotional or spiritual vacation.
Michele’s paradigm focused on the emotional and spiritual release and rest a true vacation provides. Minimizing the importance of travel or schedules, her style of vacation actually refreshes and rejuvenates.
We are less than a day away from leaving for 9 days in Hawaii, and the start of 17 days off for me. The past week or two I have started to become more focused on the physical preparations and less focused on the emotional and spiritual side of our trip. This morning I suggested a 3-hour round trip to buy additional luggage so we’d have a complete matching set to take. My focus was entirely on the physical detail of the luggage and not at all on the more important emotional cost that would entail.
To my credit I realized what I was suggesting and backed away from making that the goal of the day. Instead I am now working on making relaxing and enjoying the fruits of our preparations. I want to sit back and let my excitement at having a wonderful holiday cruise come to the fore, I want to let go of the need for schedules and stress and deadlines.
I am going to let myself have, maybe for the first time in my life, a true emotional, spiritual, and physical vacation.
Aloha!
Yesterday, Michele and I went to see this movie by Michael Moore. You may or may not remember him from the movie “Roger and Me” about the gutting of Flint Michigan by General Motors; or from his television show called “The Awful Truth.”
His documentaries have a decided viewpoint and agenda, and, whether you agree with his stance or not, they are compelling, provocative films.
In ‘Bowling" he tackles the thorny problem of guns and violence in America. This movie should be required watching in every high school and home across America. Whether you agree with his viewpoint or not, you need to see a different viewpoint than the one mainstream-corporate-bottom-dollar America wants you to see.
In Canada, a country with 30 million people, 10 million homes, and at least 7 million guns, there were less than 300 gun-related deaths last year. In this country we had over 11,000. The difference? Their news isn’t creating a climate of fear. America is living scared and in fear, and we are paying the penalty daily. The news is filled with death and mayhem. The gun, alarm, and home safety corporations don’t want you to feel safe because they can’t make money if you aren’t terrified.
Take a couple of hours and go see “Bowling for Columbine.” Think about where this country is headed and ask yourself if you want to live in the most fearful country on the planet.
I sure don’t.
I had a bit of shopping rage today. I needed to run out to the local Best Buy and get a Y-cable and some rechargeable batteries for my MP3 player. The Y-Cable allows two headphones to be plugged in at one time, and the batteries are, well, batteries.
The total purchase price was $23.75. My debt card was declined two times in a row. I was embarrassed in front of half a dozen people. It felt like the whole store was watching even though I knew better. I shame-faced made my way out of the store and back to my car. I decided to go to the nearest teller machine and double check my balance. I had well over 10,000 available to me. Since the teller machine was at my bank I went into find out the reason why my 23-dollar purchase was declined when I had thousands in the bank.
I am afraid that I took my frustration out on the first person I spoke with; he was very understanding but couldn’t provide any definitive answers why an account with so much available cash in it would be declined. He asked about my daily limit, as it would be in effect from Friday afternoon until Monday. Ours is set to $2000, and I knew we hadn’t spent anywhere near that amount.
Eventually the account representative came out and reviewed the transaction log for my card. She could see the $100 in cash I had just gotten from the teller machine, and she could also see the two-transaction attempts from Best Buy. Both had been approved and then immediately reversed. She said this was indicative of Best Buy’s system being down.
You’d think that there would be some way to inform the clerk what the denial reason was so the shopper wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by a flat refusal. I don’t know if a credit attempt would have worked; maybe that server would have been active.
Because there isn’t a human I can really lay this at the feet of I am left holding my anger and upset. I could vent it at the store, the clerk, or the bank; but none of them are really to blame. Instead, it’s the system that is at fault. We want to spend money immediately, with security and confidence. This means that when the lines of communication are down the systems errors on the side of safety and declines the purchase. I know that this is for my protection but I don’t like it when I run afoul of these kinds of arbitrary boundaries. I hate it when the worst-case scenario runs my life; I don’t like the lack of control.
So my shopping rage left me high with anger and helplessness. I had no place to express my emotion at this situation. Some would argue that I shouldn’t get upset in the first place, or that I should just not let it bother me. My belief is that keeping this kind of upset inside; that not acknowledging it; leads to disease and illness. I’d rather have it and express it and remove the toxicity of it from inside of me.
In the end I went to two other stores without finding my items. I had to return to Best Buy and get the items there. I avoided the same line even though it was the shortest available. I wasn’t sure I could keep a civil tongue to the clerk. Since I don’t do well eating when I have unexpressed upset I came back to work without getting anything for lunch.
Writing this posting has given me a release about this whole situation. I feel better for having gotten it out in the open this soon after it happened. I think now I could eat without throwing up.
Only 2 days, 1 hour, and 57 minutes until my Hawaii vacation starts. Not that I am counting down or anything…
Yesterday I ordered some roses for my wife’s birthday. Her favorite rose is called “Sterling”, which is the original lavender colored rose. They are rare and hard to come by these days, as there are other lavender color roses now.
The first shop made a huge deal out of the trouble it would be to get them and compounded their attitude by making a big deal out of where we lived and how much extra it would cost to deliver them. I canceled the order and hung up.
The second shop was much friendlier and helpful. They could get the Sterling roses, but they wouldn’t be ready for delivery until Monday and I was hoping for Friday at the latest. The clerk talked me into a breed called “Strange” which has a marbled appearance, mixing white and lavender together. Following her suggestions we put together what sounded like a beautiful bouquet.
Overnight I was very excited and had trouble keeping the surprise to myself. This morning my excitement to myself when the flower shop called and said the Strange roses they had were of poor quality and wouldn’t last more than a day or two. They wanted to switch to Blue Birds, another lavender breed.
I was upset and took my upset out on the clerk. After a few minutes I decided to call her back and apologize. My upset was due to work related events and not due to the flower situation at all. Once I made my apology, the clerk’s tone brightened immediately and I was able to verify the rest of my arraignments with her.
By making a simple choice to stand up and take responsibility for my earlier action, by admitting that I had been wrong to take my upset out on her, I was able to brighten her day and mine as well. I felt much better about myself for owning what I had done. And now the flowers will be more pleasing to me as they won’t represent my earlier anger.
Personal responsibility is easy to talk about and difficult to live. I didn’t want to make the call this morning and admit my shortcomings to a stranger, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy with myself until I righted my wrong.
My wife and I are taking a trip to Hawaii later this month. This will be my first trip there and her second. We are taking a 7-day cruise through the islands to celebrate her birthday, our 5th wedding anniversary, and Christmas.
Originally I was only going to take off 6 days plus Christmas for a total of 7 days vacation. However, since we get back on the 30th, I decided to take 2 more days off and return to work after the New Year. Then Michele asked why I wasn’t taking that Thursday and Friday off as well. I have struggled with a good reason for working those days for some time now, and have decided to take them off too. So in the end I am going to be off 9 working days and 2 holidays for a total of 11 days vacation.
This is only the 4th time in 20 years I have taken this many days off. All the rest of my vacations have been less than 2 weeks long. It just seems sad somehow that in 20 years time I’ve only had 4 really extravagant vacations in terms of time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some wonderful trips and vacations, I just haven’t let myself take any really long vacations.
Here, then, are the four 2-week vacations I’ve had since 1983:
October 1986: Two-week drive to, and through, Western Canada, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
August 1989: Two-week Windjammer Cruise in the Caribbean
June 1994: Two-week motorcycle tour of the Alps (Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland)
December 2002: Two-week trip to Hawaii
Now that I understand that taking the least amount of time off possible to accomplish the particular vacation is really a form of self-punishment, I am working hard to give myself extra time off before and after trips. Returning home from a trip late on Sunday night and going into work first thing Monday morning taints the whole experience in a negative way. I used to think I was being good by showing such dedication.
Now I have changed my perspective on time off; time off is a reward and as such should be treated in a positive manner. Our Hawaii trip is a case in point. We deliberately added two days before hand so we’d have time to recover from the flight before having to board the ship. And I am taking 4 days off after the trip to just be lazy at home. We’ve set up every detail that we can control to be as relaxed and simple as possible. Instead of being a forced march with rigid timelines and agendas, our trip is going to be relaxed and carefree.
Only 10 days to go…
Michele and I had a perfectly wonderful weekend. On Saturday we drove up to Normal and visited my brother and his family for an early Christmas. Since we won’t be in town for the actual day we decided to meet and share our present early. On the way we stopped at the only Vietnamese restaurant in central Illinois for a bowl of beef noodle soup. Our lunch was fantastic, and our time together with my brother’s family was relaxed and very enjoyable.
On Sunday we were lazy in the morning and then decided to have lunch out at Lone Star. Afterwards we went to see ‘Analyze That’ for a treat. The movie was great, even better than the first. The theater wasn’t crowded and the people who were there were quiet.
After we got home I brought in the Christmas tree box and set the tree up in the corner. We then spent some time decorating the tree and mantle with our Santa ornaments and lights. The room is very Christmassy and beautiful now. We celebrated by relaxing on the couch with a cold glass of eggnog and “It’s a Wonderful Life” on the DVD player.
For dinner we ate leftover beef stew, which was delicious and easy. We rounded out the day by going out for ice cream and then driving around looking at Christmas lights in town.
A very special, joyous weekend spent with family and getting into the Christmas spirit.
It appears that my continuing struggle with the decision whether or not to return to active workouts in karate really stem from a need to teach. Over the holiday weekend, Michele and I had several long discussions, one of them centered on my desire to help people around me.
I have always had an insatiable curiosity about the world around me. I love learning how things work, and I get great satisfaction from explaining my understanding to others. I have always been able to digest seemingly disparate chunks of information and return meaningful, coherent combinations to others.
When I was instructing at the dojo I was able to find the words and examples to reach nearly everyone I taught. Each person responded to different stimuli, and the thrill for me was discovering what made them tick so I could present data in a meaningful way. Since I have stopped actively working out I feel a sense of loss. The talk this past weekend helped me to see clearly for the first time what the true reason was for this feeling of loss. It isn’t that I miss the physical contact and interaction with my fellow dojo mates; rather I miss the teaching aspect of my tenure there.
I no longer need the physical challenge full-time karate workouts represent. I know from past experience that unless you are willing to give 100% to the endeavor you will end up hurt. My heart just isn’t in the physicalness of karate anymore. I’ve learned the lessons that kicking, punching, and blocking hold for me. What I do need is the mental, emotional, and spiritual challenge of teaching. Finding the way inside myself to reach people around me has always uncovered new truths, and spurred growth.
In the weeks to come I need to explore different avenues of teaching to find one that will meet my needs. I need a situation that will allow me to explore myself, and grow.
I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. I am in love with a wonderful, vivacious, beautiful, passionate woman who is in love with me. I have a job that is rewarding and provides the means to have a comfortable life.
As I have grown older I have matured emotionally and spiritually. I have achieved a certain balance physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. I feel integrated and whole. My enjoyment of life has increased tenfold in the past few years.
I am comforted knowing that I can face the demons I still have; the tools I have developed emotionally and spiritually will allow me to reach a place of balance with those parts of me that still create noise in my head.
I am closer to my family in a real way than ever before. I am able to be myself without worrying about their feelings. I see them as people now, and I can like them for themselves.
I have learned how to relax and live life for today. I have discovered my true pace and, for the most part, I am able to move through life at that speed and not the world’s ever-increasing frenetic pace.
I have learned how to like myself for who I am.
I saw this over at what do I know this weekend. It’s software that resides on your Mac and downloads up to 150 different comics each day for your reading pleasure. Since the comics are the only reason I ever buy a newspaper this is most excellent. Now all I need is a Mac. Donations can be sent to me.
I did some emotional resetting this morning. I was working on refactoring some code I wrote several weeks ago and was finding it extremely frustrating. The changes were seemingly impossible to make and I just wanted to throw in the towel and quit. I felt my anger coming up and I wanted to yell at anyone and everyone around me.
My thoughts turned darker and darker and suddenly I realized that I was fantasizing about killing myself. Over a coding problem? Wait a minute… Something else is going on here. It was then I knew that my annual depression had snuck back in and was sitting on me once again.
I immediately called Michele and we talked for a few minutes. Just being able to say to someone I love and trust that I was really feeling my depression and that I felt helpless in its grasp made all the difference in the world. Until I said it out loud to her I was alone with it. There is nothing worse than being depressed, except being depressed and feeling alone at the same time. I am so fortunate to have a partner who hears what I am saying and validates it for me.
After talking to her I felt lighter and more in control. I was able to laugh a little again, and instead of having tunnel vision that only allowed me to see depression and darkness, I was able to broaden my sight to include some light and joy.
My depression is still here. I still feel it, but I am not suffocating under it. The simple act of talking about it with Michele named it and chased it back into its corner for the time being.