Through the Looking Glass – A Cruise Away From Reality

In the present-day world, all our lives have become mostly about slacklining between the "virtual" and "real" world. And over the years, we have come to a point where we can’t tell what’s real from unreal. Read on to know how I took a break from this confusion between the blurry realities.

I’ve spent more than 10 years of my life in Sydney, toiling away for various multinational companies, so much so that I've even fooled myself into thinking I don’t deserve a break. But the tipping point for me was when I came down with the flu last year and my manager denied me a medical leave. So, this thought dawned on me…If I can’t tolerate how I’m being treated by the real world or the virtual world (which in itself feels like a half-baked reality at this point), I told myself that I needed a break and I quit. And to make up for the change in my life that doesn’t hurt as much as I thought I would, I’m here to rant about what keeps me going these days.

Now that I had so much time at my disposal, lazing around almost became my way of life. Even as I knew there was so much to explore and learn, laziness had its tightening grip on me and I had no regrets, duh! But how long could I continue like this? And that’s when I decided to go on a simple cruise…not the long term ones I’ve been to with my parents, but the popular dining cruises in the city. I’ve been on a Sydney lunch cruise only once before and that was, hands down, a fantastic experience. So this time I booked my tickets for an evening cruise in Sydney; I’ve heard a lot about how different the city looks magical from the harbour waters at night. Perhaps, I could head over to one of the waterfront restaurants in the area. But I guessed it won’t be so much fun to do something so ordinary. So, I chose a glass boat dinner cruise on Sydney Harbour, and it was just like I imagined–great food, incredible views and an enigmatic ambience.

I intentionally wanted to cruise solo so that I’d be alone with the voices in my head. My choice of a glass boat had a symbolic twist to it, more like the universe asking me to look at things differently. I got a table next to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which was shared with a family of five. They were nice to me. I looked out of the windows and the views were magnificent. When we moved past the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, I was thrilled beyond explanation and I felt so much alive; the child in me too. Now as I think of it, the cruise gave me the opportunity to rekindle myself and the child-like wonder that’d been lying under the shroud of harsh realities. After all, it was not the reality that was being hard on me. Perhaps, it was me being hard on myself with the way I looked at life.

I realised soon enough that it can’t be just me who is crippled by such thoughts. And an occasional break from yourself could prove useful in the long run. Just like how the glass boat cruise helped me understand that I was, in fact, not a lost sheep but a startled one still intimidated by the incoherencies of life. All these years, I had been looking at myself in the looking glass, but here’s when I took the plunge. The glassboat felt more like I went through the looking glass–into another reality where the cares and woes temporarily lost its grip on me.

So, here’s my advice folks. If you’ve been feeling dragged down by life, take that much-needed break from yourself, go have fun and let yourself out in the world like a boss! Trust me, you won’t regret it.