Are You Happy On The Vacations?

Everybody is waiting for and dreaming about the vacations, whether they are simple weekends or long winter vacations, but they are an integral part of work.

The question is: does the dream come true? Do people enjoy actual time spent on their favorite picnic spot?

I always wondered when I saw tourists with the usual paraphernalia going with great excitement from one point to another. The same crowd, the same gossips, the same gobbling between rushing. What is the difference from their daily routine?
Now there is a research available to support my doubt.
' Researchers from the Netherlands set out to measure the effect that vacations have on overall happiness and how long it lasts. They studied happiness levels among 1,530 Dutch adults, 974 of whom took a vacation during the 32-week study period.
' The study, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, showed that the largest boost in happiness comes from the simple act of planning a vacation. In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.'

Not only that, there was no post-vacation happiness either. The exhaustion and subtle  disappointment shadowed their much hyped up trips.
Osho makes fun of this attitude of looking for fun elsewhere, not where you are right now. The bottom line is, if you cannot be happy now/here, you cannot be happy anywhere.

Here is an Osho excerpt:
"There are people who are working their whole lives just waiting for their retirement; then they will relax and enjoy. And they know perfectly well: six days they work in the office and wait for the seventh day, the holiday, and hope, "Soon Sunday will come and we will relax and enjoy." And they cannot relax and they cannot enjoy. In fact, the holiday seems to be so long and so boring; they have to fill it with something.

They go for a picnic. The same things that they would have eaten at home, in a relaxed way, now they rush towards a picnic spot miles away to eat. And they are sitting in the grass, and ants are very clever; they know perfectly well where the picnic spots are.

And cars are going there bumper to bumper. And many more accidents happen on Sunday than on any other day, many more deaths on the road than on any other day. Strange! Some holiday!

And the whole city is going towards the same picnic spot, the same beach! I have seen pictures of beaches and I cannot believe what is happening. There is not even space to walk! They are packed . Six hours it takes them to reach the beach, then for one hour they lie down amidst this whole mass of fools under the sun, and then back home... And the whole way they were quarrelling with the wife and the wife is quarrelling with... This you can do at home more at ease, relaxed in an armchair -- nag each other, do whatsoever you want! What is the point of going to the beach? Nobody is seeing the sea, nobody is seeing the sun. Nobody has time."

Excerpted from Guida Spirituale/www.osho.com/library