Hard Reboot
“Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?” - Roy, as played by Chris O’Dowd, The IT Crowd.
I love going on vacation. I am always up for a trip somewhere. In fact, whenever I find myself down, my first thought is always, “let’s go somewhere.” We go on vacations for a few different reasons, right? There’s the sense of adventure you get when going someplace new or even returning to a familiar place that you find extra enjoyable.
And of course, the big reason us working adults go on vacation is simply to get away from the everyday tasks and the demands on us that never seem to cease. Yet those breaks always seem to come at a cost. We get behind on work, we get behind on life, and we get tired of all the running around, even when it’s supposed to be fun. I bet that everyone reading this has heard someone say this phrase, or perhaps even have uttered it themselves.
“I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.”
I’ve said it to my wife and other times she said it to me. Each time, we both always nod our heads in agreement. A lot of our vacations are camping, which in theory is supposed to be restful, and sometimes it is. But there’s all the setting up and tearing down to do. Not to mention that any vacation with kids is going to be less relaxing than it would be if it was just a couple of adults.
This summer we have taken several vacations and trips, and they have all been very fun during the trip but didn’t really serve the purpose of giving us the rest and relaxation that we adults always crave. There was one trip, however, that managed to defy explanation and somehow managed to make me feel rested and refreshed. So much so that it was like a hard reboot for my brain.
So where was this magical place? Mackinac Island in Northern Michigan. In case you’ve never been there, I’ll give you a quick explanation. It’s a small island located in Lake Huron, just between the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. It’s perimeter is just over eight miles and there’s a highway that follows it. But no cars are allowed on the island. Instead everyone travels around via bicycle or horse and carriage.
Most importantly, it’s probably my favorite place in the whole world. Being on the island basically wipes out my anxiety, which let’s be honest, I have loads of that. Even when the kids are giving us trouble, it’s still somehow better than it would be anywhere else. The feeling I get from the island lasts for days afterwards. Coming back home, I feel refreshed and ready to change the world anew.
It’s funny, I have been to Mackinac Island close to a dozen times and looking back, I think that I’ve gotten that feeling most times but never actually realized it until this trip. Instead, I just recognized it as this weird pull in my brain that kept telling me to go there again. I brushed it off as just a place I really love visiting. Now, on reflection, I understand that it is much more than that. It’s a place that has the magical ability to reboot my brain in a way that I didn’t think was possible.
In this situation my brain is reminds me of a smartphone that sometimes gets overwhelmed with too many apps open. If you don’t close some unused apps, eventually the phone can get to a point where it freezes up. The only way to fix that is with a hard reboot. It turns the power off and refreshes the memory and suddenly, the phone, or in this case my brain, works fine again.
I have a good friend named Neil. He and his wife love Disney theme parks. And when I say love, I mean they go there usually once a year (or more) and Neil even owns t-shirts with secret Disney references on them. We have had numerous conversations where I am shocked at the amount of information he knows about the parks. He consumes several different types of media about them. More media than I realized existed.
I just thought that they were a family that was really into Disney, but now I get it. It’s their reboot. It’s their place that probably gets them on track when they could use some refreshing.
So what’s the thing in your life that helps you reboot yourself? Maybe it’s an activity, a place, or even a person. If you can’t name it off the top of your head, I strongly encourage you to sit down and take some time to figure out what exactly it is for you. Realizing what Mackinac Island really means to me has changed my perspective good deal.
We talk so much about self care now-a-days. You can find literally an infinite number of different opinions and ideas about what you should do to really give yourself the care that you need. And while the methods may differ from place to place, they all have the right idea in mind. Rebooting and refreshing yourself is important and it will help sustain you and keep you focused on the things you need to do in life.
I realize that I am just adding another piece of self-help advice to the already over-saturated market of ideas on self care, but I am doing it anyway because I think it’s so important.
Understanding what can give you the reboot that you need will really help to change your perspective too. I for one would have never thought to prescribe myself more trips to Mackinac Island, yet I promise you, I will be doing that going forward.
And I am smiling just thinking about it.
-Jason