Sometimes the most meaningful part happens when you stop going anywhere.
Destination "Contentment" Wasn't on the Itinerary
I have spent a considerable portion of my life planning things.
Military operations, government programs, budgets, schedules, and occasionally vacations that probably required far less planning than I gave them.
So, imagine my surprise when one of the best days of my vacation was the day I accomplished absolutely nothing.
No, not one productive thing.
And somehow, I felt like that was the day I had accomplished everything I needed.
I think it was day five of the cruise when this happened.
That was the day I had an epiphany (I know, that sounds like a fruity drink), but maybe "I realized something" is the better term to use.
I had just spent three days doing everything as scheduled, making sure things were going as planned.
After all, when things go as planned, we can really enjoy the time, right?
But the best moments of the trip, the best time spent, turned out to be an entire day when we did almost nothing at all.
Let me back up a bit.
For the previous three days straight, we had worked the "ABC" Islands like a joint operation. Alarm at 0600 (or 6 AM for the non-ex-military), up and out of the cabin with the discipline and precision of nonrefundable ticket holders.
We were up and out of the cabin at sunrise, squeezing in a workout, then racing to grab some coffee, our excursion tickets in hand.
We would hit the meeting point each time with a steely determination to be on time, join our group, and damn it, have fun!
So, for three back-to-back days, we prepped for full-on crowd engagement. Trying to just stay out of the way of everyone fighting to exit the ship and race to grab what they considered a prime seat on a bus.
Then we spent our days on a schedule, under the control of a guide with a flag or a sign, a microphone, and either a smile or an attitude, giving us little tidbits about where we were going, what we were seeing, cracking a joke here and there to fill the empty moments on the road between sites.
And most of the time I could even hear them over the road noise, the poor PA system, or through the cheap little headphones we were provided.
I had planned this cruise with the discipline of a man who spent thirty years running programs and working out every possible contingency, and I’m pleased to report the mission was a complete success: on time, within quality parameters, and on budget.
We saw beaches, ruins, where the locals lived, the major attractions, and the tourist areas. We ate the tourist versions of the local dishes and took far too many photos, as always.
We cannot skip the educational value of it all, now, can we?? I now know that the Spanish called the ABC Islands "The Useless Islands."
Did you know that?
Now we both know it. You're welcome.
I was left thinking, "I am sure that stung the Spanish when gold was found on Aruba," and the Dutch were more than happy to claim it.
Useless Islands, eh???? Cha-ching... Wooden clogs and blonde pigtails for everyone!!!!
This was the first really open day. We were done with the back-to-back excursion days. This was a day with no port stop, no hectic schedule, no bus, no hours of walking, no headsets, no flags, no sun-basting beach day.
Nope, just a day at sea with nothing on the schedule, nothing at all. No painting class, no Zumba (stop laughing, technically there has never been a day for me that involved Zumba), no trivia, no bands to go see, no app pinging us about something coming up that we had marked on our schedule.
We scheduled exactly nothing for the day. Nada, zero, just an open calendar.
We woke up, hit the gym, then, with coffee in hand, grabbed a cabana poolside for what was going to be an hour or two.
At least that was the plan.
A few trips to the hot tub, a little time in the pool.
A few drinks here and there, a little snack now and then, a few naps in the Caribbean sun.
Just two people with no itinerary at all.
Somewhere in the middle of executing the "do nothing plan," the old soldier in me started feeling uneasy about this flagrant waste of time.
If there’s no mission, normally I’ll find one.
Twice I caught myself wondering what we should be doing right now.
The answer I came to was nothing, nothing that needed our attention.
The hour plan turned into the morning plan. Then the afternoon plan. Before we knew it, 9 AM was now 3 PM.
We had let the entire day go by doing nothing.
A huge, glorious amount of nothing at all....
I lay there next to my wife, reflecting just a bit on the past few days, weeks, years, decades, LOL. I found myself looking over at her as she napped and realized at that moment how happy I was.
Then I noticed I wasn't "just" happy; it was something more...
Oh, the tours over the previous days were wonderful. The shows had been great, the trivia fun, the bands enjoyable.
We ate, we drank, we danced, we stayed busy, and it was fun.
But what I felt lounging in the cabana wasn’t excitement, fun, or just getting some rest.
No, it was something different, something far too rare these days in my life.
It was contentment.
Contentment seems to live in a different part of the heart and soul. It resides in a different corner of the mind, someplace near where we also find peace and quiet, I think.
Excitement fills you up.
Rest settles you down.
Contentment feels like completion. Not just rest for the body, but a respite for the mind and the soul.
And I realized I wasn’t just reflecting. I wasn’t just replaying the last three days or planning the next three.
I was in the moment, 100% there, just appreciating what was, at peace with what had been, and not needing one thing more in that moment.
And perhaps that's what struck me most.
All those years of doing, working, building, traveling, succeeding, failing, and starting over weren't simply things I had accumulated over my lifetime.
They were part of what brought me to this precious moment.
Not because I had finally finished anything, but because, for a little while, I felt no need to add anything more.
Which got me thinking about the word lifetime.
We use that word a lot, and in so many different ways, that it has become one of those "numb to it" words that we really don't give a lot of thought to when we say it.
Lifetime, what a strange term. It describes the vessel that is "you." "Lifetime," the unknown duration of your existence containing all of the memories you pour into it.
But the duration doesn't determine the capacity of the vessel. A lifetime can hold remarkably little or an almost immeasurable amount, depending on what we choose to put into it, and perhaps more importantly, what we learn to appreciate along the way.
So here I was floating along on another vessel, a cruise ship, thinking about the vessel that is my lifetime. The one I’ve been filling for many years now, and how the decisions I have made have carried me along, filling it. Sometimes with good stuff, sometimes with not-so-good stuff, but all my stuff.
You can fill a lifetime with work, deadlines, reports, running around, and yes, even excursions. You can fill it with a lounge chair, or a cabana, a tent, or a sofa at home.
You can fill it with laughter, tears, wonder, and any other emotion or experience you can think of.
The vessel that is your lifetime just holds what you put in. But somewhere along the way, all those experiences can give you something else.
The ability to recognize when, for one extraordinary ordinary moment, you have everything you need.
The trick, I’m starting to suspect, is knowing which days call for the tour and which call for the nap and never mistaking the second kind for wasted time.
Trivia is at eight tonight. We will probably lose.
I don’t mind.
P.S. It took me five drafts to write this post about doing nothing. Some habits don’t retire.
If you enjoyed this give these a read!
Whatever “It” Turns Out to Be! Our Mediterranean Journey.
The Debt We Create When We Say “Next Time"
Why Someday Is a Dangerous Word
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