The main thing my family argues about during holidays is whether the few days we spend together should be active or chill. Should we be doing more than we are right now? Or less? It depends on who you ask. If the active people think that whatever we’re currently doing is super fun (and already on the more laid-back side of things), the chill people almost certainly think it is not nearly chill enough. The active people are like, “I mean, this is already on the more laid-back side of things.” And the chill people are like, “You call this laid-back? This isn’t laid-back at all. This always happens. We plan all this stuff. Why do we keep planning all this stuff?”
The chill people win some arguments, but the active people usually end up getting their way. They have the advantage of higher energy, so they will debate the chill people over how busy or chill our afternoon plans should be, and then ride that momentum right into convincing everyone to head on out so we can make it to the next thing on time. By now, the chill people, even if they made some good points during the debate, are tired of arguing and tired in general. At that point, it is pretty easy to convince them to go ahead and hop in the car.
In my family, my brother is on the extremely chill end of the spectrum, while my mom is on the highly active end of the spectrum. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. We all just spent a week driving around northern California, wandering through quaint little towns with quaint little shops and quaint little whatevers. Around the third or fourth quaint little town, my brother realized that this was going to be the entirety of the vacation. Hopping from quaint town to quaint town, soaking in the quaintness. For my mom, this was very exciting. For my brother, it was a nightmare. One night, midway through the trip, he told me that if the next day started with a yet another 45-minute drive to a charming little town square, he might jump out of the car.
Whenever the chill people become despondent in these kinds of situations, the active people always say something like, “Well, if you wanted to do something else, why didn’t you chime in when we were making plans? We would have loved your input! Why didn’t you say something?” It’s a well-intentioned response that the chill people find absolutely infuriating. It’s not that they want the plans to be different. They don’t want there to be plans at all. They want all parties, no matter how chill or how active, to create space for the complete absence of plans.
Of course, to the active people, this sounds like a complete waste of a vacation, so they never build enough chill time into the itinerary. That’s just not who they are. They want to pack in as many cute little activities in cute little places as they can, because it’s super fun and everyone is going to love it! And then the chill people find out about this, and that’s when the arguing starts.
Personally, I don’t really care either way. When I’m with my family for more than a few days, I just kind of go numb. I don’t really mind bouncing around from town to town. Book shops. Women’s clothing boutiques. Quintessential small town grocery stores. I will sit on a bench outside any of those establishments and space the fuck out for hours. I am so down with that. There’s a new mixed-use development only 40 minutes from our Airbnb that we’d all really love? Good. I have nothing to do right now except laugh from the back seat while the chill people go in on the active people for ruining a vacation that the active people are genuinely enjoying.
At one point, my dad asked my brother and me what we thought about the direction the trip was going, in terms of activity vs. chillness. My dad leans active. I said I thought things had gone pretty well. After my dad left the room, my brother accused me of throwing him under the bus. Which I didn’t. I just didn’t care whether we drove 45 minutes east or 25 minutes north or stayed right there in the Airbnb all day. Which is an overall pretty chill attitude. But apparently this counts as “throwing the chill people under the bus,” because I didn’t advocate for the absence of plans. Not sure what group that puts me in. Chill but not chill enough, I guess. I genuinely hope the chill people get a better deal next time. They just need to get in with the people who are creating these itineraries. (It’s always an active person.) I don’t see that happening, though. It would require some networking and planning ahead, two of the more unchill things. So we’ll probably all keep arguing about it forever, throwing each other under the bus.
Tell your brother they’ve done studies that show, surpassingly, that when people plan vacations they: (1) hate making plans, (2) don’t really enjoy the travel/destination while they are experiencing it, (3) really begin to appreciate the experiences once they are back home and it is totally over.
It’s like going to the gym. Everyone hates everything about until it’s over.
Good stuff as always man