I just got back from a family vacation on the Oregon coast. We escaped the heat and smoke of the cities and met for five days of exploring beaches, watching wildlife, and eating chowder.

The air was bracing and briny and cold. We went to bed each night the good kind of tired – when the mind is full and still with pleasant experience, and the body is fatigued by exertion. We slept in, lingered over coffee. There was no rush, no deadline, no place we had to be, and no task to accomplish.

As Americans, we have such an urge toward productivity though. I wanted to find some way to take the experience and condense it into something “useful” that I could bring back to my every day; to be extra rested, so I could be more productive; to make some previously unnoticed connection that could be built on; to gain all the commodifiable benefits business articles hail as reason for companies to treat their employees well.

It can be hard to embrace moments of peace and relaxation as equally valuable on their own – if not more so.

There were moments in the week when we had set some objective – get to the lighthouse or restaurant or some other location – and were so focused on getting there that we nearly rushed by…

seals playing in the surf…

whales dancing in the kelp beds…

And I fell into a complete funk halfway up a mountain hike that was steeper and more challenging than I had anticipated. I nearly gave in to the urge to give up, let the others go on without me; to be angry and disappointed and bored while waiting to be collected on the way back.

There was supposed to be a payoff, but the hard part was taking too long.

At the top of that rise, the trees opened up to a view of riverine marsh and rocky sea, split by a volcanic escarpment. A mother elk and faun stepped delicately down a facing hillside.

I found myself laughing with unbridled joy.

Finally, I noticed the beauty of the forest path itself on the way back down.

And I had almost been willing to miss it.

We do this to ourselves often. Or at least, I do. What’s the shortest, most direct, most efficient path? How do I achieve my goal with greatest success for least difficulty and smallest expenditure? We want to maximize and up-level and scale everything.

Time and attention are our most valuable assets, and how we spend them matters. Sometimes when striving for efficiency, we can miss the things that can truly pay dividends in experience, joy, and memory.

Sometimes it’s better to take the slower route, to look around, to be open to a momentary wonder.

I wasn’t inspired to some brilliant new piece of writing, I didn’t figure out how to resolve a niggling problem, and I didn’t gain any business insight. There are no time-saving or money-making conclusions, no creativity hacks derived from my vacation.

Only, when getting from one objective to the next, when it’s slow going or arduous or boring…

don’t miss the whales.