And this is what it did to me.
This was the longest trip I had in thirty years.
After sleeping in strange beds for 49 days in a row, I was thankful to sleep in my bed for the last few nights.
Besides meeting family, visiting new places, and attending a wedding and a birthday bash, this trip had another significant purpose — mental rest.
What we do as writers is quite cerebral. We need to give ourselves mental breaks in the same way that we need to sleep. Vacations regenerate our minds and help us get out of the rut.
Before going on this trip, I was a prisoner of self-created routines. They were driving me nuts.
I was taking on more and more projects and setting myself deadlines that I knew I couldn’t meet. The trouble was that I couldn’t get out of the hole I dug for myself. Everything felt important and urgent.
I was compromising my health and wellness to chase goals that had no ultimate significance.
Eight weeks away from my routine, I could see nothing is more important than my health and happiness.
I have come back with a clean slate. My priorities have changed.
Previously they were:
1. Writing
2. Family
3. Fun
4. Health
I was at a point where I was so chasing my writing goals and fulfilling my own expectations from me that I was not taking the time to evaluate what was working and what was not.
The reality for us creatives is that we are drawing from the creative well without taking time to fill it. We are continually sucking the marrow from the things that are happening around us without realizing how stressful the writing process could be. Long breaks can help let go of all that and just relax. When we are able to do that, we get a new perspective. Wonderful things can happen when we least expect them.
Joanna Pen, a writer and podcaster, talks about the serendipity of those moments when you are traveling and you’re in a museum and you see something and you realize this is something that can enrich my book or you come across something that suddenly gives you a new idea which you wouldn’t have found, had you not been for the travels.
Downtimes give us the opportunity to reset and recalibrate. The trip helped me look at things from a new perspective. I have re-prioritized the four important aspects of my life. My new priorities are:
1. Health
2. Family
3. Fun
4. Writing
I have put health first because for the last four years I have been ignoring it while concentrating on writing. It is even above family because I won’t be able to look after my family if I am not in good shape.
The wake-up call came during the India trip itself. We were visiting the exotic Khajuraho temples when I saw color fade away from my brother-in-law’s face. He was unsteady on his feet. So we got him to sit down on a bench. He was having a stroke.
By the time we got him back to the hotel, he had lost movement on his left side. We had to cancel our travel plans and bring him back to his hometown for a further checkup. Lucky for him, he fully recovered. But it left me shaken.
For the last four years, I have not been eating well, putting on the extra weight, and neglecting my regular check-up. My excuse was that the pandemic caused interruption to my gym routine and regular visits to doctors. But the truth was, I was being careless.
Now I have joined classes every morning — three days flexibility, two days yoga and two days weights. I have also started intermittent fasting and joined Weight Watchers again.
I have merged many of my writing projects and made plans to repurpose my content. One aspect of that is to revamp my website and transferred all my writing there so that I can pick stories from there whenever needed.
My new writing routine will be to write long-form, content on Medium and Substack and short-form on LinkedIn. I will also concentrate on writing books and mini-guides.
That’s it so far.
I promise to be more regular in the future.