Live Every Day like you’re on Vacation

Every once in a while, when the work gets slow and the brain goes into overdrive, I get to thinking – is life really about working 9 to 5 with the only gratification being a regular, albeit meager, paycheck?

When I go on vacation, it gets more difficult each time to come back to the “real” life of work and oh so little play. Then as I sit daydreaming at my desk, thoughts of vacation mingle with real life. So much so, that I find myself asking, “how can I live that vacation-like life every day?”

Are the days of lazily swinging in the hammock as palm trees sway above only guaranteed to those to win the lottery of life? How else besides being reincarnated as Angelina Jolie can I make this scene my life?

My husband and I dream, more so now than when we were in our twenties. We dream of a simpler life, in a tropical climate, with hopefully less bills. We like to think it is not just a dream, but something we could actually achieve, sooner rather than later.

Since we are not independently wealthy and have not been the recipients of a large inheritance, we will certainly have to work.

Herein lies the quandary. Can you really combine a vacation-like life and work? I like to think so, as long as both are on your terms.

So many of us, me included, relocate to beachfront communities only to find that day-to-day life eventually takes over and enjoying those endless sunny days and walks on the beach become something you do only when out-of-town guests visit. Sad, but true.

Do I have to wait till I’m 70 to stop taking life so seriously and start really living? That is, of course, if I live that long and am still healthy.

Whew! All this thinking makes me want to take a vacation.