Do you know this feeling? Do you experience it too? The feeling to miss something important? The feeling to waste time, to be too late? This feeling creates a deep and heavy restlessness within me.

Example vacation, going to a place I like, for some days to recover and relax. Usually I start with lots of plans in mind. There are many things to do once arrived there. I wanna reach that mountain by bicycle or I wanna hike there, do this and do that, all the great things I did last time and a few more. In winter when I go for cross-countr skiing I need to stand on ski already on the arrival day, even if I hit the trace not before the late afternoon. Once on ski I wanna get some kilometers and I usually I have a number in my head I wanna reach, already on the first day. So it happend very often that I did not return before nightfall, but I made my 20-25 km. This usually satisfies my restlessness for a short period in time, but the planning game for the next days starts again at the evening.

But what is this? What a misbelief that packing a vacation full of action might lead to a better stay, more relaxed, more memorable, more complete. Wouldn’t it be more recreative when starting into such a week more slowly, doing less actions with more mindfulness and attention. Wouldn’t it be better to just enjoy the valuable moments instead running after life full speed all time? Wouldn’t it be better to do a few things right instead of many in a rush? So it looks like the recreation expectation I have does not match with the actions I try to fulfill these expectations. Interesting, isn’t it?

Tomorrow I wanted to start for a one-week trip and right at time my car wanted to have some fun by showing me a yellow engine warning light in the cockpit. No issue, lets visit the garage of my trust. Hmm, unfortunately there is no trusted garage around anymore. Plan B then is to visit the nearest one, which had been closed between Christmas and New Year. Nice. But there are more garages and finally I found an open one. There error log of my car showed 6 errors, wow. This needed further investigation and I went back home by train, with the outlook to get my car back the next day. Dreams, I called the garage to learn that one electronic control unit has a malfunction and needs to be replaced. Good, just do it was my first thought. But unfortunately this controller isn’t in stock and can’t be delivered by the factory near-term, arghh! It might be part of th delivery expected tomorrow afternoon, very nice. That afternoon I wanted to be on the highway already. Good, relax, lets defer the trip by one day and I asked when the garage would know if the controller would be part of it and I knew the answer already while asking, when the delivery arrives.

Now some of my plans are spoiled, I have no idea if there is still a chance to leave before New Year’s eve and the worst thing is, I am angry. I am angry about the quality of my car, about the bad timing, about the closed garage, about the out of stock controller.

Full stop. Is this little accident worth to be angry, to show anger? Not at all. Hey, it’s just one deferred day. One more day at home, which I could use to enjoy things here around. One more day I could sit in front of my Christmas tree. It’s so easy to get angry and ignore the good things around. Boosting up the anger. But every situation and every change has also a few good things. We just need to find and concentrate on them. Somebody told me some time, if a door closes for you, another one will open. And she is right. You know what I am going to do now? I’ll use this unexpected evening at home for a good book and a nice glass of wine. This is luckiness, isn’t it?