Vacation is a time to just be.
Our work is our work, not so much in terms of labor, but in terms of what we are still here to do on the planet.
Our work is: the risks we still need to take, the ‘no’s we still have to hear, the loneliness we must move through as we encounter ourselves within our individual circumstances.
When we go on vacation, we ‘vacate’ the premises of all that confronts us both personally and professionally, and we rest. We replenish. We feel safe.
It is easy then, to believe this is all we can handle. But the truth is once vacation ends, it is time to resume our purpose in this life.
Vacation is like sleep. We need our sleep. We need to dream, and allow our dilemmas to unravel organically. (That’s why I always write these blogs in the morning, as if upon the arrival of a postcard sent from my subconscious, delivering all that I need to say.)
For artists, artisans and other creative entrepreneurs, putting a price tag on the work in order to be compensated, (while the norm in other professions), is in itself, the work.
Because translating creativity and an aesthetic into dollars and cents is a statement of it being necessary.
And that is very confronting because, well, is it?
Are you in touch with the value you create? Can you put it into words? What need does your talent fulfill in the form(s) that it takes?
Conveying the answers to these questions is called ‘marketing.’
Marketing is the work.
And vacation is over. It’s time to start.
