Why Vacation is Important
I graduated college with about $500 in my bank account. For the four years I studied to receive a Bachelor’s degree, I committed to doing it debt-free, but doing so meant pinching every penny I could down the stretch. I tried not to buy any clothes for myself, lived on chicken and rice, and only ordered black coffee if I dared go to a coffee shop. I’m so grateful I did this, and I empathize with others working diligently for a degree or paying for it all themselves. But living like this meant cutting costs on many things, and in hindsight, there was something I never did in my four years of college: vacation.
To be clear, I did go on occasional weekend trips with friends and worked at a couple fun summer camps, but I never had an entire week off to enjoy a place. Summers were for paying for school and nothing else. Fast forward, I started dating my now wife, Jackie. To her, not going on vacation was the same as seeing an alien on the empire state building. Her and her family valued their time off and even go to the same place in Florida every year, in addition to other time off. When we got married, there was a natural resistance inside me to taking a week of for vacation. I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized that I had gotten so used to not taking vacations that now taking one was a foreign concept. Needless to say, I worked through it, and I’m glad I was able to. Since then, we’ve been able to take time to see many wonders across the U.S. and experience the beauty of our country.
By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be back from a week in southwestern Florida with my in-laws, and I couldn’t be more grateful. For what I’ve learned is just how important vacation is for us: we all need it. Vacation recharges us, lets us experience God in a slower pace, and opens our eyes to the world. Taking time off gives us that space to recharge our energy in a new way, where we can fill back up for our life in home. It lets us experience God in a more soulful, grateful way that can be challenging to do when you’re used to the busyness of your typical work schedule. And perhaps most importantly, vacation widens our perspective by seeing beyond our environment and more than our small problems.
I’d encourage you, if you have not already, to plan a vacation. More than that, remember why you’re doing it, soak in the experience, and come back a new person ready to keep going in in your life. I understand how expensive it can be to get away, but it’s worth it. It’s something we must work for, in a way, because they don’t come handed to you. But whether you’re used to five weeks off a year or this will be your first one, embrace the joy, rest, and importance of vacation.
