My wife recently took off on a holiday to Europe and Japan for almost 6 weeks. After her return, she was in pain for a couple of months from a wrist injury – and she admits it was from carrying around all her shopping during her trip.

That is why I don’t go on holidays. It is just thought it was too painful.

Holidays can mean many things to us – but they usually involve travelling away from home (for a certain duration of time) all in the name of ‘fun’. The further away and more exotic the location – the better, and obviously, taking off on a plane is far better than just driving away.

But whilst the going away brings on the excitement and anticipation of adventure, the coming back is an event that is consigned to the back of the brain’s filing cabinet. However, every time we go away for a holiday, we always seem to come back. It is just like the prisoner’s worst nightmare: Every time he makes an escape, it is short lived. Somehow, he is always caught and brought back to jail.

I used to think some smart marketer thought up the idea of escaping the ‘daily grind’, turned it into an industry – and we all got fooled into believing that holidays are the cure for all our troubles. “I need a holiday” we would say when things were not going too well. Trouble is that we keep having to come back. There is a brief escape to nowhere – then we are whisked back to reality again.

… But now it has sudden dawned on me that the reason we have holidays is because it is merely a reflection of life. There is no escape in life. It is just like a holiday. We begin our journey full of anticipation – and just like any holiday, good things and bad things happen.

…Then we have to go back. Back to where we came from.

Life really is a holiday. So, all we have to do is relax, take it easy and have fun. Sure we have to go back, but there is no time to think about that right now.