Just Enough
By Clay Hipp
A life measured in mornings, not milestones
"Blue Whispering Day," Choy Moo Kheong, Singaporean artist, 2022
The word vacation comes from the Latin vacatio — freedom, exemption, a release from duty. It traces back to the root vacare, a verb meaning to be empty, to be free from work, to be unoccupied.
I have been thinking lately about that word. We have a big vacation coming up in October at the "shore." We will be meeting a few good friends from other states — people we met at the beachfront lodge where we will all be staying again. None of us is much of a beach person — Joanie comes the closest — but we all so love the surf: the sound of the waves, the way the ocean changes by the hour. Each morning several of us greet the ever-changing sky as dawn breaks and leads us through its display of clouds and colors. We have each left our homes, and whatever daily routine we left behind. We are truly on vacation.
What has become of that idea in the crush of our pursuit of progress and success? Are we truly in control of our own destiny, or have we adopted the "conventional wisdom" of perfect decisions made by markets?
“All the lies come at you in a million ways
Some you hear and some you tell yourself
And they say that virtue is a pile of gold
And that weapons are a nation’s wealth”
—Bob Franke, "A Still, Small Voice."
Has that truly become our national idea of a virtuous life?
Need some evidence? Consider the new definition of vacation. One source:
"A true vacation has transformed from an untethered sanctuary of rest into a hyper-connected, curated commodity. Where downtime once meant total psychological detachment from daily labor, modern breaks are routinely invaded by constant digital pings, performance pressure, and the urge to document rather than experience.
The Death of Unplugging: In-flight Wi-Fi, global satellite data, and remote workplace cultures mean work now travels in your pocket.
The "Workation" Compromise: Blending work and travel creates a blurred middle ground that delivers neither productive focus nor true physical repair.
The Burden of Curation: Social media turns leisure into a visual performance, forcing travelers to hunt for aesthetic perfection rather than personal ease. — Philip Ogley, Medium
There is plenty online about what this is doing to our psyches and our personal lives, if you care to pursue it. My concerns run more to our mental and spiritual conditions.
Over the last fifty years or so we have been sold a new definition of living well, and we have bought it wholesale. We have paid, and are still paying, the price. You might say, "Yeah, but you're retired — easy for you to say." You'd be exactly right. But we earned what we have. We grew up in a time when we and most of our friends understood the concept of "just enough." We knew very few of us would become rich. We believed in Social Security and employer-managed retirement plans. We believed in our country and what it did for us, and on our behalf. We took regular vacations — mostly to places that would seem "mundane" to many now, but that involved no airfare and no exorbitant lodging.
I avoided being rich in several significant ways, and I have few regrets. The life I led to get here gave me many intangible gifts — one of which was time with family and friends. I once held two jobs at the same time: teaching at a fine university and being a weekend farmer. When I brought in my first real harvest, I told several people it was the richest I had ever felt. I just broke even, financially, for twelve years. But it was worth it.
It is even more mundane than that. Over those years I became adept at cooking — having, for a long stretch, to shop daily and prepare the evening meal, mostly from scratch. Across a whole life of teaching, I've told friends that my entire day is better for the "mini-vacation" of that hour. I lose myself in the preparation, choosing spices and herbs, building a dish out of nothing.
So please consider taking a true vacation soon, and refuse to let anything take its pleasures from you.
We must get our minds around the idea that we are not getting paid for our leisure time — we are surrendering it.
Once it's gone, we are not going to get it back.
Are we wise enough to take the definition of vacation to heart, and truly act upon it?