Finally, back from an extended holiday.

Two weeks of vacation time turned into an entire month away from the bustling city life. Away from the dirty exhaust fumes laden air, crowded streets and the mindless zombie state of our very monotonous lives.

Sometimes I wonder to myself, why do we complicate life so much?

We want to live in the nicest houses, own the best cars and travel to the most exotic places. Even when we achieve these things, we still want to do one better and have a bigger house, a bigger car and travel to the ends of the world.

Yet, we are never fulfilled. The human psyche is conditioned not to be fulfilled and most of the time that is a good thing. How else would the world have developed into the tech age?

We would probably be in the stone age if we were content with where we were at the time.

Still, we spend our whole lives working, working, working and dying without ever really experiencing the things we dreamed about. The things that truly make us happy.

Very few of us ever go through life doing what we love.

Most are stuck in dead end jobs. You are enslaved by a heap of debt that you acquired paying for a dead-end education and you will probably be paying it off for the rest of your natural life. Maybe circumstances have you as the sole provider in your family. Worse yet, you are victims of a corrupt state and can barely afford the basic needs and you feel increasingly trapped.

It is an unfortunate place to be.

This was the very first time in a decade that I ever disconnected from the world and vanished with friends and family to a remote location for close to a month.

There were trees everywhere around us and a river a couple of meters down the hill and a large farm filled with fruits and fresh vegetables.

Fresh milk was available every morning like clockwork from the 6 large cows in the shed a few feet away from the main house.

There was barely any internet connection. We only managed a weak 2G connection as we tried to send goodwill messages over Christmas and New Years. So the phones barely got used.

It felt good to put the phone down although not at first. It felt unnatural not refreshing my Twitter newsfeed. However, after three days it was easy going a couple of days without being tethered to a charging port.

The trees made the days cool and nights chilly, so there was always a fire running in the living room fireplace as we reminisced the good old days.

In those moments you simply forget the ills in the world. You forget about the corrupt government slowly auctioning your country. You forget how the actions of one man can lead to reprisals in a country an ocean away.

For sanity’s sake you always need to prioritize taking a break.

Now, back to the grind and looking forward to a year doing the things that we are most passionate about.

Happy New Year to you all!