Vacation performance

My social media feeds this summer have been filled with friends and acquaintances taking amazing trips to beautiful and sometimes exotic locations, inspiring both envy and anticipation of my own family beach trip.

Rather than resent these posts, I find them interesting. Honestly, my first reaction is “good for them!”

But this week when our family trip to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, finally arrived, I didn’t want to join in the sharing. I just wanted to be off… off the clock, off the computer, off the phone, off the grid even. The internal struggle and conscious decision not to post about my vacation this week had me pondering why I ever felt a need to post our vacation moment-by-moment as I had many times in the past.

I am not a social media influencer. Why do I try to act like one?

I decided I needed to take a vacation from performance rather than feel pressure to perform a vacation. 

Say what you will about your own motives of capturing images of your exploits, but I find my communicators/reporters instincts are to document everything. My 14-year-old has grown noisily weary of my “family selfie time!” impromptu photos at every potential highlight.

To me, the honorable motivation is capturing memories. I can easily go down a rabbit hole when looking through old photos on my Facebook account or external hard drive. It’s the equivalent of when my parents used to break out the screen and Kodak projector, load it with carousels of slides and revisit the “Before Lancer” times and the early days of “Baby Lancer”. I marvel at how my kids have grown, how young Carla and I looked and how many good times we had way back then.

The less pure motive is that I must take photos that will look good on Facebook or Instagram and keep my engagement up or what will attract readers to this blog. I am a communicator by trade, and when I extend public relations into my personal life, it can be exhausting, not to mention disingenuous.

My friends already have a way of checking me on this by asking “Is this from real Lance or PR Lance?” I admit, I can get in over my head on sharing, and the real Lance gets lost in the performance.

Which brings me back to vacation. I needed a break from the pressure to communicate this week, and I got it. No posts. No Tweets. No Threads. No Reels. Just relaxing, laughing, eating and enjoying my family to the backdrop of smooth jazz and the waves crashing ashore on the Emerald Coast.

If you haven’t taken your vacation yet this summer, I encourage you to consider a vacation from performance rather than performing a vacation. Go ahead and take all the photos, just don’t feel pressure to post immediately. You’ll find at the end of the experience, you will remember the details better, you are more refreshed, you are more connected with loved ones and you are better able to describe the events of the week when you retell the stories in the future. 

If I can convince you to try it, maybe I really am an influencer.