In this Interconnected Age, I find the lines between work and play blur into a gray zone, especially when one chooses not to disconnect from the grid. I just returned from a three-day vacation to Chicago with Jen and Ethan. Unfortunately, I learned more painful lessons on how to dilute the value of a family vacation:
- Commit to phone meetings, even if they are 30-minutes in length.
- Keep checking your mobile phone, PDA, and work email.
- Neglect to tell your colleagues and key clients that you’ll be gone.
- Believe that you are critically needed every minute of the day by others, except your family.
- Allow your mind to become focused on every little detail about work.
What happens when you follow this proven plan is that you miss the opportunity to completely enjoy a break from the world and strengthen the familial bonds. Having the high expectations of myself that I do, I realize how I created the situation myself.
Despite these frustrations, I can say we had fun for the 12-hour period where I shut everything done and just focused on the family. We shopped at the stores we wanted to visit, we bought the things we wanted, we ate the meals we craved (deep dish pizza and Chicago dogs).
Family Vacation Tip: Gotta say that the $4 we spent on riding the elevated trains/subway was one of Ethan’s favorite thrills of the whole trip. The simplest pleasures cannot be taken for granted.
1 response so far ↓
Kells // August 14, 2008 at 12:34 am |
You have some very valid points. I have always been in the camp that vacation is time to be spent unwinding from work, recharging your brain and body’s batteries. It kills me when I see co-workers sending e-mails or leaving VM when the are on “vacation”. How can these people ever unwind? Maybe some people draw their energy that way, but not me. When I am on vacation I want to spend time with my wife and kids, making family memories, experiencing new sites and foods. This is the time when you payback your family for all the sacrifices they make to you. Computers and phones stay home.
Our daughters, too, get a kick out of just riding on a public bus or train. Things we take for granted, huh? We also enjoy going to church when we are on vacation. What’s better than spending time with our Father, who never gets a vacation. And many times you get to meet some nice people and see some nice art and architecture.