Vacations not for everyone

I don’t much care for what most people would call a “vacation.” And –once upon a time– felt a bit of guilt about it. Barb likes to travel so she and her sister frequently vacation together, so it works.

I discovered last week that I am not alone. The story (Yahoo! News) quoted a couple of people who share my lack of enthusiasm for The Vacation.

Nancy Kirk doesn’t consider them worth the effort. So instead of taking vacations, Kirk, 60, who owns an antique quilt and fabric business in Omaha, Neb., works down time into her everyday life — from taking an afternoon nap if she feels like it to occasionally tacking a day onto a business trip for sightseeing.

Jared Wadley, a senior public relations specialist at the University of Michigan news service in Ann Arbor, said he wasn’t interested in vacations even as a child. He not a workaholic, he says, but instead paces himself so that leisure is part of his day-to-day life.

“You have to look at why people take vacations. They want to get away from the office, but I enjoy my work so I don’t want to get away from it.”

There you go. I have three weeks of paid vacation but struggle to take it all. I think I would much prefer stretching those 21 days out into long weekends. If you add in the naturally occurring three-day-weekends… almost every other week would be a short one. Sound good?