Call to Inaction

One week down on my vacation and I am feeling very relaxed. I tell you, two weeks is the way to go. After one week, you are just getting into the groove of doing whatever you want. You need the second week to really enjoy it. It takes work to get into the hedonistic frame of mind!

So anyways, I think I could get into the beach lifestyle. Why aren't more independently wealthy people beach bums? It certainly seems to me to be the way to go. In American life, there is shame in not being productive in a day. Whenever I ask someone how there day was, I often get a standard response of, "Great, I cleaned the house, did the groceries, mowed the lawn, etc." When I am asked that question and answer, "Great, I did nothing all day." I get a follow up of "Why, are you ill?" It seems to be totally unacceptable to lay around all day. Except at the beach.

As soon as you hear that someone spent the day at the beach, there can be no expectation that there was something accomplished, with the exception of flipping over to even out your tan. The same people who look at you like you are a waste of space for being a slug on your couch are the ones who are the most envious and congratulatory for lying all day at the shore.

Let me further prove this to be true. At the "House on Stilts", my family will wander down to the beach while I will hang back to spend my day on the porch. While I love being at the beach, I am not a huge fan of putting on sunscreen, laying in the sand, baking in the sun. I don't hate it, but the porch on HOS has the afore mentioned daybed, so I can do exactly the same activities without the mess and with a fully stocked fridge. If the fan on the porch is not doing it's job, I can still run down for a dip in the ocean. However, I get more crap for not going through the ritual.

So I ask why this double standard? Why is it socially acceptable to do absolutely nothing while cooking in the sun, but to do it anywhere else, you are just lazy? Well I for one am not going to take it anymore! In the tradition of "sit-ins" I call for a "sleep-in" to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the beach minded! Who is with me? Snore loudly in solidarity!