When the Flamboyant trees are in full bloom; I know is vacation time. This is by far my favorite season in the Caribbean as the colors of these majestic trees are amazingly beautiful. They just show up here and there, mixing with the green of the hills.
Wassily Kandinsky believed that “Color directly influences the soul” and I cannot agree more.
I “wined” myself in the vacation mood with my colleagues/friends that are staying on the island to enjoy the traditional one month of “go slow” period. I absolutely love the concept, btw - the colleagues that are still at work are asked politely to have some patience as there will be delays in communication (since the rest are vacationing).
It is amazing how much you grow and develop while being fully immersed in a different culture. I am even more amazed on how focusing on living and not necessarily pursuing a certain (career) goal can make you feel fulfilled.
As a coincidence (or maybe not) I was reading today, (coming as a recommendation from Zach’s Pogrob Ten Bullets), the letter Hunter S. Thompson wrote to a friend on finding purpose and living a meaningful life… Apparently, he was 22 years old when he wrote it. You can find it here if you are interested (and I full encourage you to read it).
Some extracts I really enjoyed from the Letter you can find it here:
…to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.
But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors— but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires— including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.
or…
Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.
Naturally, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ve lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence. So it isn’t any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
Coming back to my vacation, after “wine-ing” myself, I saw one last sunrise
And then I left…
Hello Kinderdijk….
and hello Giethoorn….
I loved it and I am grateful…
Thank you,
Oana