I am on my honeymoon in Hawaii for the next two weeks!

Trust me, it gets old faster than you think.

So let’s take a short break from our blog series on who should hire a coach.  Frankly I have two topics I am just dying to write about.

This week we explore our vacation attitude.

The original Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I., and The Brady Bunch adventure on these islands have had me hooked on the Aloha state since I was a boy.

Yet this is my first trip.  And it’s amazing.

As the days pass here and our return flight looms large, I must admit I am a bit sad about returning home.

I bet many of you have experienced a similar sensation when vacationing in a beautiful locale.  And I also bet your thought process took you here:  I feel so good in this place now, I bet this feeling would last forever if I moved here?

Wrong!

Unfortunately lots of people make the decision to uproot and relocate to a “paradise” based on their categorical misunderstanding of human nature.

Now I am a coach and a science geek, so I have read extensively about our ability to adapt quickly to pleasurable experiences/places.  It’s called hedonic adaptation (from the word hedonism).

We all want to feel good, and most vacations, and certainly all honeymoons, are designed to do just that, in abundance.

So I decided to conduct an experiment while in Hawaii.  I needed to uncover evidence to support my claim that 1) hedonic adaptation is alive and well (no big surprise) and 2) it has a silver lining for those of us suffering from the “end of vacation blues” (a worthwhile surprise).

This experiment required me to chat up a variety of people, people I suspected were transplants to Hawaii.  The first was a waitress at an extremely posh resort on Maui.  As I enjoyed the view (see this blog’s pic) I asked, “I bet you never get tired of this vista?”

She acknowledged its beauty but admitted she hardly noticed it anymore.  She walked away a little sad (and I felt badly for contributing to her despondent outlook).

One of my cab drivers was a surfer dude and former Californian.  After telling me how amazing it is to surf without a wet suit (warm water makes it unnecessary I guess), I asked him if he ever misses California.  He became somber and then spoke to me about “island fever” and his need to escape from the “smallness” of this place from time to time.

Finally on a walk to a remote beach on the “Big Island” I asked an older man what brought him to Hawaii so late in life (I was more politic in my actual wording of the question)?  He said, “It’s paradise!”  Then I asked him about the variety of people on island.  He became serious and shared with me how it can get lonely here, how the “sameness” of everyone is claustrophobic, and that he misses the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, his home for most of his life.

My point is simple yet powerful:  Be thankful you feel great while on vacation and be thankful you leave to return home within a week or two.  The beauty of any place wears off very quickly.  We adapt to it, and most of us, within a short period of time, stop psychologically absorbing it.

But there is a greater lesson here if we are open to it . . .

What we really miss when we return home from a trip is not the scenery but our vacation attitude.  You know what I am talking about.  It’s that open, fun-loving, inquisitive, and experimental attitude that invites others to participate in our lives and us in theirs.

This vacation attitude, however, is not destination dependent.  If you crave it then live it as often as possible because it does not require a flight or sunny skies, and it’s waiting for you to seize it, right now.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.