Our Desperate Need to Keep Up (Even When We’re Supposed to Be on Holiday)

You set off after breakfast, intending to enjoy an inspiring walk on the Camino de Santiago through the Gascon countryside.

The sun is shining. The birds are making a perfectly respectable effort at a glorious morning chorus. Somewhere in the distance, a tractor is roaring up a hill. The path winds between vineyards and flowering meadows, past an old stone farmhouse with blue shutters and a friendly dog who considers your presence a matter requiring immediate investigation.

All is well.

You set a steady pace.

Not because you’re late. There is nowhere you need to be at a particular time. You do not need to worry about where you will be sleeping tonight. Nobody is waiting for you at the other end of the path with a clipboard and a disappointed expression.

And yet, you’re striding along purposefully.

You pass a field of sunflowers without really looking at it. You overtake a couple taking photographs of a particularly attractive oak tree. You check your watch, it is faithfully counting your steps.

And then it dawns on you.

You are hurrying.

On holiday.

In rural France.

You have, in other words, managed to bring your entire working life along with you, without even having to pay for an extra suitcase.

Perhaps you recognise the feeling. You have spent months looking forward to a break. You have booked the retreat, arranged the travel, made the lists, and carefully planned to have ample time to do absolutely nothing.

Then you arrive and decide that you should explore the area. You should read that book. You should get fitter. You should make the most of the sunshine. You should probably learn something about yourself while you’re at it.

Heaven forbid you should return home without having achieved anything.

Overwhelmed, you stop beside a low stone wall and sit down.

There is no grand revelation. No sudden rush of enlightenment. You simply sit, with the sun on your face and the faint smell of warm earth rising from the path.

A horse in the neighbouring field lifts its head, decides you are of no immediate interest, and returns to grazing with gusto.

You watch him for a while.

He doesn’t seem particularly concerned about making the most of his morning.

He isn’t wondering whether the other horses have covered more ground, learned more lessons or made better use of their time.

It is eating grass. Because it loves eating grass.

And you find yourself wondering when you last did something simply because you enjoyed it, without needing to justify it by its usefulness.

When did rest become something we had to earn?

When did a walk become an opportunity to improve our fitness, a book become a source of personal development, and a holiday become another project to manage?

Perhaps you are very good at getting things done. Perhaps people depend on you, and you have spent years being the reliable one, the capable one, the person who can always be counted on to sort things out.

Those are admirable qualities. They may also be exhausting when you forget that you are allowed to put them down occasionally.

Because the trouble with the need to always keep up is that you might never arrive at the finish line.

There will always be someone doing more, travelling further, earning more, looking younger, meditating more regularly or posting photographs of a kitchen so immaculate that you suspect nobody has ever actually cooked in it.

You can spend an entire lifetime trying to catch up with people whose lives, despite the evidence on social media, are not real.

Or you can sit on a wall in Gascony and watch a horse peacefully eating grass.

Later, back at Maison Meraki, there will be coffee. Perhaps a book. Perhaps a conversation that wanders from one subject to another without anybody trying to extract a lesson from it.

And gradually, something shifts.

Not necessarily anything dramatic. You don’t emerge as a completely different person, armed with a new philosophy and a colour-coded plan for the rest of your life. You simply begin to notice the difference between what you want to do and what you think you ought to do.

It is a small distinction, perhaps. But small distinctions have a way of changing how a day feels.

And a day, repeated often enough, has a way of becoming a life.

Perhaps, next time you catch yourself rushing through something that doesn’t require rushing, you’ll pause long enough to ask a rather inconvenient question:

Who, exactly, am I trying to keep up with?

You don’t have to abandon your ambitions, burn your diary or move to a farmhouse in France to find the answer.

Although I can recommend the farmhouse.

You might simply begin by walking a little more slowly. Eating lunch without looking at your phone. Sitting in the garden for ten minutes without turning it into a mindfulness exercise.

You might discover that you don’t need to do more with your life.

You need to be a little more present for the life you’re already living.

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A question for you

When was the last time you stopped doing something useful and did something enjoyable instead, simply because you felt like it?

I’d love to hear about it.

And if your answer is I honestly can’t remember, that’s worth paying attention to.

A note from Maison Meraki

Here in Gascony, we have a rather different approach to getting somewhere. There are vineyards to wander through, country lanes to explore, horses who need cuddles, and enough opportunities to sit down with a cup of coffee to make a very convincing case for doing so.

My small-group retreats at Maison Meraki are an invitation to step away from the constant demands of everyday life, catch your breath and rediscover the benefits of taking time to think, walk, read, rest and simply be.

No pressure to transform yourself. No requirement to have a life-changing revelation by teatime. And absolutely no need to keep up with anybody.

Discover the retreats at Maison Meraki