Two weeks lived in the present tense. That was the most surprising part of my summer vacation. My sister and I did a two week road trip, and almost every minute was lived in the moment. Back at home, I can acknowledge that we were able to have such a break from our usual mental frameworks because of all the pre-planning.
Planning is not onerous - but it does take time and it only pays off in the future. Deciding how long to drive every day and reserving hotels in advance took my sister considerable work as she played with her map program and online booking sites. However, on our trip we never got tired from driving, and we had no anxiety as we pulled into town after eight hours on the road. Our biggest decision of the day was whether to eat lunch at one picnic site or the next.
Details matter. Only with the thought of keeping the driver alert, we began early on to read the names of lakes, streams, rivers and towns as we passed the signs. As we wound our way around Lake Superior and into the Canadian shield, this simple conversational gambit turned into an appreciation for the endless number of natural features in the landscape and gave us a sense of the great and the humble who had formed part of our history. Our favourite segment was passing Mom Lake, Baby Lake, and, yes around the corner, Dad Lake.
All good things come to an end. Cliches are popular because they are right. Managers need to help themselves and others accept that programs, projects and processes that were good are now fading into the past. Accepting that holidays have ended is relatively easy because by definition they have a completion date. Harder to accept is that my suitcase and my backpack have both worn out and that whatever fixes I could apply really don't add much value. Time to go explore and find then next best thing.
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