Success Has Challenges Too

I’m writing this up in the clouds having recently been in Okinawa, Japan and the stillness and quiet of that magical place made me think of a very important life lesson to share.

I think productivity, especially in America, has been ingrained to a belief in all of us. We don’t want to waste time sitting in line, or dealing with things that aren’t important. We all want to maximize our time and energy in the best way possible each day.

I used to always take this viewpoint as the ‘right’ one but my trip to Okinawa, Japan reminded me of how this view of optimizing and maximizing isn’t always a good thing.

Take food for example. What happens when you maximize and optimize food? You get McDonalds and we all know that eating McDonalds is terrible for your health.

What happens when you maximize and optimize travel? You get a week-long packed itinerary or cruise ships that are designed to get you everything you need so you don’t need to really travel. (I really don’t want to offend people who like cruise ships, I just want to add the perspective that this is an optimized & maximized way of traveling and that there are other ways to travel slowly where you experience real culture of places). I’ve literally heard people say they need a vacation from their vacation and I’m sure you have too.