“People look for retreats for themselves in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in their own mind…So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“People enjoy their food, take pleasure being with their families, spend weekends working in their gardens, delight in the doings of the neighborhood. And even though the next country is so close that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking, they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it.” -Excerpt from Verse 80 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
“Wherever you go, there you are.” -Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”
“Yes, every once in a while.”
“Do you know that in abou thirty- five more years we’ll be dead?”
“What the hell, Robert,” I said. “What the hell.”
“I’m serious.”
“It’s one thing I don’t worry about,” I said.
“You ought to.”
“I’ve had plenty to worry about one time or other. I’m through worrying.”
“Well, I want to go to South America.”
“Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.” -Robert and Jake conversation in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
When you’re lit up by something, when you’re on fire with passion and purpose, when you’re truly living out your vocation, you may not need or ever want to take a vacation.
P.S. – “I’m on vacation!”
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