Leaving Poolside: Enjoy the Depth

The disorder across England and Northern Ireland last month may well have scuppered the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer’s holiday plans, but in doing so they also revealed a broad consensus of opinion: while it may not be politic for a leader to take a holiday when there are riots ongoing across the country, holidays are nonetheless necessary for wellbeing, and the relaxation and chance to step back from the day-to-day grind that they provide promotes creativity and strategic thinking.

This ‘post-holiday blues’ questioning of lifestyle and contemplating significant changes is a common issue and can significantly affect our motivation.

The difficulty often lies in the jarring return to home and work. Travel can be a seductive, dangerous thing - this summer, two different couples among my friends, fresh from respective jaunts abroad, have been pondering the plausibility of life relocations. This ‘post-holiday blues’ questioning of lifestyle and contemplating significant changes is a common issue and can significantly affect our motivation.

However, those of us fortunate enough to work in public service need not be so blue, and can be guided in our return to work by those who take a contrarian view of travel. This year I holidayed in Alsace, famous for its Riesling and Gewurztraminer. By the second week of the holiday I was certainly relaxed - enough so to be able to enjoy watching the organic synchronies of children jumping and diving into the pool around each other; something that had earlier called forth stressful visions of collisions, broken bones and trips to foreign emergency departments.

I had taken English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton’s thoughts on philosophy and wine as apposite poolside reading and returning to the text after admiring a particularly impressive set of plunges into the pool I was struck by his use of a counter-cliché: ‘travel narrows the mind’. By this Scruton was taking aim at the often-misleading effect of transient and superficial engagement with other places and cultures that comes from leisure travel, contrasting it with the deep, enduring and constructive engagement one can have with one’s own place and society. In this view, while travel may well be pleasurable it cannot provide the deeper joy that comes from contributing to a community.

Sir Roger borrowed the line from G. K. Chesterton, an earlier English writer, who delighted in employing such paradoxical transformations of common place sayings. While Chesterton was also critical of the frequent shallowness of the experience, he was not altogether against travel. Rather, he saw that removal from the familiar allows us to see it with fresh eyes on return. As he put it in The Riddle of the Ivy: ‘The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.’

In this view, while travel may well be pleasurable it cannot provide the deeper joy that comes from contributing to a community.

Both of these perspectives offer public servants valuable food for thought on returning to the work.

Firstly, reminding us of the privilege of the opportunity our work provides to make a meaningful difference and through sustained engagement contribute to the fabric of our societies.

Secondly, they help us meet the responsibility this privilege bestows – the need to blow away Chesterton's obscuring ‘cloud of custom’ and look afresh at how we deliver for our communities. So, as you leave the poolside this year, remember to enjoy diving into the depth that awaits in your work

How are you approaching your return to work from holiday? If you have any advice, leave a comment below. ⬇️

(Image credit: Unsplash)