Sometime last year, I took few days off. I did not go anywhere. I did not do anything that fits the classic definition of a vacation.

When I don't do something and just sit, there are two things that bubble up - anxiety and boredom. For a change, I let them be this time around.

So the three of us, anxiety, boredom and I sat together quietly - clouds changing shape and butterflies chasing each other in the meantime. While I did some light reading on and off, for the most part I did nothing.

On another note, it is interesting how our work identities have become central to who we believe we are and how that in turn has appropriated a lot of other things in life - vacations to recharge for work, mindfulness to be more productive at work etc., Leisure is not something you do, to do something else better. It is a perennial undercurrent in our lives to tap into and perhaps stay centered in - vacation or otherwise.

Interestingly, the word vacation comes from vacare - 'to be empty', ‘to be unoccupied’. Our vacations are anything but this.