Today is the first day back from a 13 day holiday in Sri Lanka. Wow. What a great place. I would highly recommend.

I have this understanding of holiday breaks where I only reach the point of complete refreshment after 10 days or so. It’s the moment of realising it’s 5pm and I actually have no idea what day it is….is it a Tuesday or a Saturday?! The standard markers of passing time fade away. I am just existing. Thankfully, I reached that point on this trip, which was great. It also reminds me that it is good for me to aim to have at least one 2 week break every year. 

It is also good for me to have a few days of just rest. Literally not doing much at all; not trying to fit in a packed itinerary of bouncing from place to place, seeing all I can see. It’s actually fine for me to just lie on a beach and let the world go by, to read my book, to eat some good food, and to stay in the hotel room if I want to, which I did. Did I ‘do Sri Lanka’? A younger version of me would have scoffed that I didn’t try to integrate more into the Sri Lankan culture, go to more local Sri Lankan restaurants and make more friends with random people in hostels. Now? I guess I got what I needed, which was rest and a chance to cultivate fresh eyes by doing something different.

I loved spending more of my day being more in my body – I did a lot of yoga and surfing. When I say surfing, I mean I got thrown around in the waves a lot. That doesn’t matter though, what I loved was the state of non-thinking, just being so there. It’s very hard to be elsewhere, especially when you’re getting churned up in the waves. Also, I have a lot more appreciation now that while the basics of standing up on a surf board can be easy to achieve, becoming good at surfing is a whole different story, and likely years in the making. It’s a shame that London is far away from a decent surf spot! It could be a good idea for me to find activities that make it very hard for me to be elsewhere.

Not Nice

I read Not Nice by Aziz Gazipura while in Sri Lanka. On first reading I really had a lot of ‘huh’ moments, where it felt like I was basically reading about myself and then was being presented with an alternative way to approach the world. The book was full of personal anecdotes that were relatable, and I definitely intend to make notes and try to incorporate some of these things into my life. I have definitely also said that about 50 books I still haven’t got back to, but this time it’s different! The concepts will probably fall through into this blog in some form or other in the future. 

Reflections

I also got plenty of time on holiday to actively reflect. In mid-December I was trying to write another post on self-help traps, and I was asking myself what did I want to solve with self-help? Over the following weeks I forgot that this was the question I asked (until writing this), but I have been trying to develop an answer, which has proven to be a journey. I will share where I am up to in this journey in a later blog post.

For now, let’s make 2024 the best year yet!