Recently I had a chat with a friend who was planning on going on vacay with his girlfriend. The guy was just whinging about how he didn’t want to spend the money, how he needs to be at work, how he could be super productive instead of going on a trip with his woman. As someone who works a lot, I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was bewildered at how a grown ass man with a serious job, in a relationship for years could be complaining about going on vacation with his significant other. Granted, it was his girlfriend’s idea, not his. This was going to be his first flight since the pandemic and he was not looking forward to it at all. His main concern was the money. “Why drop all this money on a trip, that I don’t need – when I could be finishing up more work at the office.” Absolutely ludicrous. This guy is doing well financially and has job security – he also happens to be on salary and is afforded these vacation days. I want to preface, if you can comfortably have a conversation with someone about going on vacation, you probably are in a decent enough financial space to go on vacation.
And listen, I get it – I’m someone who works a lot and has opted to not take days off because of work but here’s what I think – you can always make more money, you can’t always make more time. If you wanted to take a lavish trip, you can do that. If you want to take a budget friendly trip – you can do that. You can always save money even when you spend it – shit you can make money by spending it, but you cannot ever make time. You can do things quicker and more efficiently to save it but you will never ever get the seconds back. Seconds that you could be happy in, seconds that record every positive memory that you can make – you cannot make those seconds up. Ideally for me, money is the tool that you use to decorate those seconds in making them happy memories. You can put a price on the ticket, the accommodations, and the food but you can’t put a price on how much happiness having fun can give you.
I say all this while knowing that I will be going on vacation that I am really looking forward to in a month but I digress. Imagine, you’re on your deathbed and all you see before you die are Excel spreadsheets because you decided to work over getting lost in the woods in Kyoto like I did, seeing a romantic sunset in Porto like I did, or watching a mugging in Bangkok like I did. Yeah, I tell those stories literally all the time and the reactions I get from people may as well pay dividends through their laughs and entertainment. Don’t buy things, buy experiences. Don’t spend time worrying about what you could be doing instead, spend that time enjoying what you’re doing in the present. I don’t care how much work you have, if you can afford to go on vacation, go on vacation you damn fool. I’m about to knock my friend out, not even for his woman’s sake but for mine.
Oh my God, this is a live laugh love type beat – what have I become. . .
