My Rule and why I break it

Hello everyone, have you recovered from my Squid Games post? That was not fun to write, it took twice as long as usual as it was a heavy topic and though  I didn't really know where I was going with it, I knew I had to write it. I hope it blessed you.

But today I want to talk about Holidays or what my American friends call Vacations.

Speaking of the American translations the one thing that has tripped me up three times is the chips/fries translation. In Australia and the UK, we call all fried potatoes in stick-shaped portions chips. Fries are sometimes used to describe MacDonald chips due to how thin they are.

This confusion hit me so hard on New Years Eve in the cold of New York. I saw chips on the Chipotle menu and I asked to order just that. They looked at me very weirdly but after I insisted they handed it over. I was so excited to eat a hot chip in a cold environment but on my walk back to the apartment when I reached in tentatively to grab the edge of the piping hot stick of glory, I felt no heat. Instead, I touched a cold, depressing tortilla chip. At that point, I felt the full distance of how far away I was from home.

Travel is a big part of the human experience. The adventure of experiencing new cultures, food, activities, names for potato-based snacks, is a wonderful joy. Over the last 18 months for most of us, that privilege has been restricted or even completely taken away but it will return. While people in this season have realised that endless travel for work is unnecessary, I hope the spark of desire to explore still remains in your heart.

Growing up I did not travel anywhere outside of my state. Now if you live in a state like California or Texas you may think that is normal. Your state is huge! But I grew up on a tiny island that is 9.9 times smaller than Texas and has 75 times fewer people than California. We did have access to a holiday home owned by my grandfather and we holidayed there every year. I actually think this is an epic strategy for family memories so I am not complaining, but it is fair to say I did not have the travel bug. My wife (not at the time, we were just kids) growing up travelled the world. Her parents were not rich, they just worked hard and valued overseas travel. Plus they had 4 fewer kids than my parents so that helps as well I guess. I laugh about the fact if we were in the same class at school I would secretly have hated her. I would show the class the picture of me posing on a rock at Bridport Tasmania, and she would show the picture of her posing with Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. So when we got married the question was would we ...

Sorry that question got cut off for me as well at the time. We became a travelling family. I am not saying we were travelling all the time but we would travel within the country a few times a year and overseas at least every 18-24 months.  How did we pay for it? Well, I competed in series of child's games in Korea.

A more honest answer is that I often would combine work and travel to help make it possible. For those who don't know, not only am I a world-class blogger, I am also a children's comedian. I like to say comedian because performer makes me seem like I do pantomime whilst dressed as a lion with an oversized head. In a nutshell, I am a big deal in a very small circle and sometimes that small circle will want me to come to perform or consult in their Kids Ministry. So I could often combine a trip with visiting churches. This is a great way to help pay for this trip but I realised something after doing this for 4 years. It wasn't a holiday. Even if I was just performing on the weekend I would still be emotionally processing that during the week so I could not fully switch off and recharge. It was like when you try and charge an iPad or tablet with the phone charger, it just keeps the lights on but doesn't really work.

So after getting to a point of breakdown (that story for another post), I created a rule. At all times I would have 2 weeks of holiday/vacation booked in the calendar at all times. Even if the dates are not perfect it is in the calendar and leave already approved with work. Then if I need to change it closer to the time, I always found it was easiest to move booked leave rather than create a new request for leave. At the bank, it was never a good time to take leave so that meant every time was a good time to take leave. I would pull that bandaid early, get something on the calendar and when it was time to take the leave, I would disappear and let the problems sort themselves out. Then within the first week of coming back, sometimes before I would even take the leave I would then book in the next lot of 2 weeks. It could be a year later it didn't matter, it just had to be in the calendar.

The effect this had was incredible. I learnt in Human Resource training that studies show that every 12 months you need at least 2 weeks of unbroken leave. It takes a full week for your body to power down from the adrenaline of life and start relaxing and then it needs a week to rest. So these 3 days breaks or the cheeky week away are great and make fantastic memories, but they can't come at the cost of your yearly 2-week break.

The reason I am writing this blog is that I have just realised that I broke my own rule. At the start of this year, I fully transitioned to London-based employment. Same job but I just had to come under a different structure, so I effectively had to quit my job and be reinstated in London. This means my leave was paid out and I started from scratch. Now I was still allowed to take leave but I wanted to build back up my leave balance, so I didn't book anything in and got stuck into work. Fast forward to 8 months later - I have finally booked in some leave which is next month but I have noticed a difference. I am tired, really tired and I am going to get to this break dragging my body over the finish line. I think one of the reasons why is I broke my rule. You see when I have leave booked I know there is a break coming up, I know the race I am running has an end and I can pace myself to get there tired but strong. I have not had that this year and I have suffered because of it.

So I broke my rule because I forgot but not anymore. I have my holiday this October and I have already booked another 2 weeks in March 2022. This next race I will run will have an end date and I will cross the finish line standing on both legs.

Hey if you are reading this and are in the same boat as I was, I have the solution. Get your family and a calendar and book something in. I do not care when, in fact, you don't even need a plan right now of where you will go or what you will do, just choose a date for 2 full weeks. Now apply for leave any way you have to. Do it now, it won't get any easier. Finally, breathe in and out and enjoy the fact that the current marathon you are running now has an end date, where you can relax, recharge and get ready for the next race.