My dreams of lazy, summer vacations usually begin about the time of fall’s first frost and reach their peak in early spring. Such dreaming, I suppose, offers a kind of emotional release, but I sometimes wonder about the value of my silent pastime. There are, I think, some serious problems.

First of all, vacations rarely live up to one’s expectations. Indeed, vacations may be diminished because of them. How can a place or an event, for example, ever live up to a dream that has been refined dozens of times? These dreams never include such mundane things as bad weather or bored children. Perhaps, we should give up taking vacations and just think about them! That way we would never be disappointed.

Even more to the point, dreams about the future can devalue the meaning of the moment at hand. The essayist Robert J. Hastings suggests that some of us have an idyllic vision tucked away in our minds which pictures life as a long train trip. We endure the endless journey only because we believe that one day we will arrive at some distant station where all dreams will be realized.

The trouble with such a vision is that sooner or later we realize there is no station. The true joy is in the trip itself; the station is only a dream which constantly outdistances us. If this be so, life is much fuller when we stop counting the miles and pacing the isles. We need to go barefoot more often, walk more forest trails, experience more sunsets, love more, laugh more. Life is best and most fully lived as we go along. The one final station comes soon enough.