Countdown to Spring

I saw an interesting post on Facebook. Someone suggested that now that Christmas was done we were into a countdown to spring. Works for me. Similar to how I felt when we finally hit December 21. We all have certain checkpoints. A point in time that we realize the next step has come. My next checkpoint is January 31. If I make it till then I will have conquered winter, again. I know. There is February which can be cold. March has a mind of its own. Last year the golf courses opened middle of March. Earliest ever. Could we be so lucky again?

During this time of year many people plan a holiday. Find some place warm to go. Get away. Life has this tendency to become tedious. Stale. We need to get away. Many times it becomes a matter of filling the emotional gas tank. Our jobs get to us.

I am no different. I lucked out. Got an invitation to join three others for a week of golf in Phoenix. Never gone on a holiday without my better half. It feels strange planning this. A certain amount of guilt. I know she needs a holiday more than I do. When we moved last spring she changed jobs. Aside from adapting to a new place to live my work continued as it had been. Now I am the one that gets to take a week off. Not quite fair. Will have to find a way to pay her back for this one. Hopefully my emotional gas tank will be over flowing when I get back.

I suspect that there is a very fine line between needing to recharge the batteries and escaping from the reality we call life. Why does it seem that so many people do not seem satisfied with life? So many seem to be searching. What is it that we are looking for? Financial independence? Relationships without challenges? Health challenges? What really would it take to be able to sit back and say, “I have it made”? I wish I knew the answer to that. I see people who have no financial worries and yet they are not happy. I see people in relationships that are better than I could ever imagine but are not happy. I see people that have achieved their life goals but keep searching. I see people that seem confused and lost. What is it? What are we looking for?

Read an interesting quote the other day. “Instead of wondering where your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape from.” -Seth Godin. It got me thinking. Perhaps that needs to be our focus. Perhaps what we are looking for is right there in front of us. In other words we might already have found what we keep searching for, just don’t recognize it. Life is too short to spend it in some futile search for something unknown, supposedly better. But life is also too short to keep doing what we are doing if we are just not happy. Make life changes before life changes. Make it a good one.