No groaning about having to get up so early.
No last minute searches for PE kits that should have been washed.
No panicked realisation that there is forgotten-about homework to hand in today.
No battles over uneaten breakfasts.
No packed lunches to prepare.
No reproachful rushing out of the door with cries of " I'm late now. Why didn't you wake me up earlier!"
Holidays are great.
Not just school holidays but all holidays.
And not only if you are lucky enough to spend them on sunny beaches or in exotic countries.
What's special about holidays is that your days belong to you.
They are not defined by lessons or meetings or deadlines. Instead they are filled with the things that are really important in life: relaxing, laughter, friends and of course, Facebook, Twitter and re-watching sit coms.
Like islands surrounded by weeks, holidays are what we are always sailing towards.
The thought of being away from work or school is what keeps us going.
Even if it is simply staying with friends for a few days, or relaxing at home.
The break from routine helps us re-charge our batteries, reclaim our lives and put things in perspective.
When we lived in America, I was horrified by how little " vacation," people were allowed to take.
Working life there does not begin with a certain number of vacation days already allotted. Instead you have to earn them: a day a month.
If you work for 6 months you get 6 days holiday and if you use them all up on a six day vacation, you start again from zero.
The trouble with that is (or the benefit if you are an employer ) the longer you work, the more holiday you accrue, so better to just keep working and save the vacation time.
And in the end work becomes what is safe and familiar.
People start to believe that they are indispensable, that if they take a holiday everything will fall apart.
The thought of taking a vacation becomes more stressful than the thought of staying at work.
And so holidays are put on hold, days off spent in the office.
Enjoying life with your family becomes something you wait to do when you are retired - if your family is still together and remembers who you are by then.
When we moved from sunny, work-driven California to the lush green pastures of family-centred Switzerland, the change in work ethos was extraordinary.
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| Swiss pastures |
People begin their working life with 5 weeks holiday and if you are still at work at 5.35 pm, your boss asks you if you have a home to go to or if you are experiencing family problems.
On bank holidays and Sundays offices and shops are closed completely. The only places open in town are cafes - packed with families and friends and laughter.
And everyone, everyone takes all their annual leave.
The strange thing is that the work still gets done. the deadlines are still met and Switzerland, for all its natural beauty, is a famous international business centre.
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| Switzerland-interanational business centre. |
The hardest thing to do in life is prioritise.
There is always a reason to believe that what you are doing now is more important than what you should be doing next.
But if you never take a break, never take time out to re-assess, relax and re-charge, how will you ever know what is truly important - even if it is just the peace of early morning and the knowledge that the rest of the day belongs to you.
Leisure by W H Davies
- What is this life if, full of care,
- We have no time to stand and stare.
- No time to stand beneath the boughs
- And stare as long as sheep or cows.
- No time to see, when woods we pass,
- Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
- No time to see, in broad daylight,
- Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
- No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
- And watch her feet, how they can dance.
- No time to wait till her mouth can
- Enrich that smile her eyes began.
- A poor life this if, full of care,
- We have no time to stand and stare.
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