Me-cation

My First Vacation in Decades is a Vacation from Me

I have two dogs: a rotty named Jupiter Juice and his half-pit-bull, daughter India. I also have a cat, Sweetness (you can see them all in my latest blog at JaxonCohen.blogspot). When I'm finished with the day, I come home and sit down to relax. These two celebrate by howling as if it's Spring Break! I've learned to embrace the three or four minutes of ear-spiting sound. And for the first time in decades, I join them.

There are many complicated reason why I remained a Born-Again Vacation Virgin. I was in the Army. I took care of my father for a decade and a half. Since his death, I've been paying the bills. This year, my mother challenged me to make time for her. She invited me to the zoo. I accepted in light of my last post (my next post will cover our visit).

I am in the middle of an experiment with myself: practice what you preach. I theorize that the best way to change behavior is to make the process an ongoing game with rules, rewards, and a scoreboard. Science is backing this up. I have many things I want to change about myself. I've created a game to etch out the person I want to be. Spending a few days with her is the first opportunity here.

I will practice my future.

What do I mean by this? There is a popular saying, “fake it until you make it.” This vacation will be spent faking it. I will pretend to be the person I want to be. I will follow all the rules of the game I've not been able to because of the daily grind. I will score the most points. I will blow that board up! But more than this, I will create a playbook of winning strategies. By acting out my highest priorities even just a few times for a few days, I will change reality. I will create memories – new behaviors to build upon. These few days will be filled with “doing things differently.”

Instead of licensing myself to luxuriate in the depths the self-gratification, I thought it best to traverse this extraordinarily rare space by giving myself what I really want: a better life. The next time you take a vacation, consider this concept. Time off might not be as rare for you as it has been for me and not every vacation should be spent this way. But consider trying it out. Maybe next time you don't make the typical attempt to “release some steam.” Instead of being who you are everyday, but just somewhere special, stay where you are and pretend to be the person you wish you were everyday. Take a class. Organize your finances. Stare at some art. Clean out the basement. Explore a risky, family activity that requires investment. Climb the mountain that is your ego and crush it, if only for a few days.

Try a me-cation and when it's over, feel the joy of standing on new ground. Sometimes the greatest thing we can do to ease the stress of everyday life is to take time-off and focus on reconstructing our everyday life for the better.