Illusions

The other day, I read an article (in Swedish) in Dagens Nyheter (DN) in which two families were interviewed. The first family couldn’t afford going on a trip during their vacation, and thus had to stay home, while the second family chose to stay at home because they felt it to be more relaxing, with all conveniences at hand. A representative of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, which had conducted a survey on people’s vacation habits, said that it is essential to spend vacations elsewhere in order to be able to relax.

Yesterday, me and my family took a day trip out to the country. The weather was extraordinary and those few hours were very refreshing. This summer we won’t travel anywhere far. Earlier summers, we’ve preferred to not make any plans, but to let the spur of the moment guide us. One year it took us to northern Italy. When we woke up we felt we wanted to go on a trip, so we bought tickets online, and a few hours later we were at the airport. In the evening we landed in Milano, and after that we spent ten days in Como.

A few years ago, I found the day-to-day life very demanding and I felt that spending time away from home was essential for me to be able to relax. A few miles outside Stockholm was enough, as long as it was away from home. Staying away from home, in surroundings that differed, if only a little, from the usual, did the trick for me: I could relax. But there’s no universal law, such as Newton’s law of gravity, that says that it is impossible to relax in your home during vacation. It is an illusion.

Illusions are often very powerful, but it is important to me to find them and get rid of them, or at least to be aware of them. And if you can’t afford going on a trip during your vacation, the illusion that it is essential for you to relax will only make things worse.

So what is this illusion about? Last week, I read another DN article (in Swedish) about cleaning and the equality of the sexes, in which a recent study was mentioned, showing that 80% of the Swedes have fights and arguments about cleaning. If cleaning and other household tasks are so common as causes of fights, no wonder you have to leave home during the vacation! The article interviewed several people who saw hiring contract cleaners (paying them with dirty money) as the solution to this problem. But there’s another illusion here.

What is it about household work that makes people regard it as an utter bore? I’d say that the fact that it “has to be done” is a major reason. Some people live in houses with gardens and since the garden must be tended, they completely loathe garden work. Others live in apartments, but get themselves an allotment garden, a patch of land to tend for the fun of it. So is it not the attitude towards the task that makes it an utter bore, not the task itself?

Hiring a contract cleaner or buying a dishwasher might save a relationship, but it is no less an illusion than the dice of The Dice Man (see here). It “works” because you think it works, but it probably only defers things until another cause for distress enters the scene. If you escape one dull thing – say, doing the dishes and getting a dishwasher – you are likely to find another thing to run away from – like doing the laundry or cleaning. It is not as if the problem with the dishes is the last one you will ever face.

When we had this discussion on my company’s internal chat server, I confused my coworkers into thinking I am against dishwashers, but I’m not: I am against getting one with the sole purpose of getting rid of something dull and boring, without realizing that it isn’t the task itself that is dull and boring. I do use the laundry room in my house, instead of taking my family’s clothes down to the river twice a week. And I often get the urge to escape from doing the dishes (right now, actually), the laundry, the cleaning, and so on. But during the last few years, I’ve been able to come to peace with such tasks. And most of the time, I enjoy doing them.

So, you might have the urge to leave your home during the vacation because of all these household tasks which make you distressful. By all means do! But I think that in trying to find out what it is about the tasks that makes them cause distress, and about your home that makes you want to leave it at least for a week or two every year, you have a chance of coming to peace with them. The goal is to be able to relax at home, not only during vacation, but always! Weekdays and weekends. Regardless of whether you engage in something that you “want” to do (reading, hobbies, TV) or things you “have” to do (cleaning, doing the dishes, laundry). (See also my post Vacations and insane expectations.)