There's a funny column about vacation and work cross-posted on Reuters from the web site The Wrap. Writer Steve Hutensky pokes fun at people complaining about the holidays being over and their vacations being too short. He also takes a shot at those of us who want to go on permanent vacation by "quitting your job to operate a beach bar in Maui."
Hutensky's end thought isn't just that we should be happy with what we have. He also urges us to embrace the sour with the sweet, and there's scientific backing for his argument. It's an interesting notion given the proliferation of bloggers, authors and lifestyle designers telling us to do the opposite in recent years by pursuing happiness and passion and enjoying every minute of life. This fantasy was part of the recession's "funemployment" movement and has lured workers away from stressful careers to set up shop on the beaches of Asia to live in leisure. But even one of the people who helped coin the "funemployment" term returned to the land of the income earners eight months after her layoff.
It's not just about the money: it's about the need to work, to create things to give yourself purpose, as reported in a June 2010 issue of
Psychological Science. But there's another factor related to the strange mechanisms of pleasure. Research shows interrupting a pleasant experience with something less pleasant actually heightens our enjoyment. Duke psychology professor Dan Ariely found in his book
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home that the pleasure levels of television viewers increased after a commercial break (yes, even when it's that same annoying car ad over and over). So even if you did decide to make sipping kava on the beaches of Fiji your full-time occupation, you'd likely enjoy it less than if you only got to do it a few times a year.
Additional research indicates the length of our holidays also influences pleasure, but probably not in the way you think. A 2010 study in Applied Research in Quality of Life found those who took a vacation were happier than non-holidaying workers before their trip, but not after returning, because the pleasure wears off rather quickly. The study authors suggested actually taking more frequent short-term trips rather than one long vacation each year.
What do you think? Do we need work to really enjoy a vacation, or could you live a permanent life of leisure?
