When one pair of flip-flops explains the mindset

I arranged a couple of days ago to meet up with an old friend in the neighborhood and go to a nearby pub for a cold beer.
I arrived from work, properly sweaty from too high a temperature (even though it's summer, these days it's unbearably hot, like in most of Europe), I washed a little to freshen up, changed, took off my pants and long-sleeved shirt (which is the corporate uniform code), put on Bermuda shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and put flip-flops on my feet.

I didn't even want to wear slippers, I needed more freedom and more skin in the fresh air, just like I get by wearing flip flops.

I found myself with friend, who was also wearing Bermuda shorts and short sleeves, while he had sneakers on his feet.
Leather ones, the same ones I wear when it's 5 or 10°C outside, not 40°C as it was that day.

When I asked him why he was wearing sneakers and why he wasn't wearing sandals, slippers or flip-flops, he answered me with a sentence about which I now want to express my opinion here!
"No, no matter how warm it is, I only wear slippers when I'm on vacation, at the sea."

"Should I enjoy my bare feet only 10 or 15 days a year? No way. I wear slippers and flip-flops every day, in the morning, during the day, in the evening, when I'm not working and when the situation doesn't require me to wear different shoes," I thought.
"Is it because of work?" I asked him.
"Well, yes. I'm used to it at work, and when I'm wearing sneakers I always seem ready, if there's a need to do something," he told me.

How different my mindset is from his.

As soon as I'm done with work, I switch off, because I don't want to feel any obligation during the time I'm not paid for and I'm not obliged to think about work.
I am able, as soon as I go home, to come up with some activity that I would enjoy for the rest of the day.

When the weather is nice, I make sure to put on a thin wardrobe, flip flops and head out of the apartment.

I try, when the weather is nice, to spend as much time as possible outside, in nature or maybe walking through the streets of the city where I live.
And I'm especially full of ideas during the weekend, when I'm not on vacation, and when I have more free time.
I am able to prepare very interesting weekend experiences for myself, and on these warm days, you can guess, my greatest pleasure is when I am next to some water and when I can refresh myself.

My friend would perhaps only prepare such a refreshment for himself on those days of annual vacation, but I am ready to dip my bare feet in the water wherever the opportunity arises.

Maybe not as great as in this cafe in the pool, where, while sitting on a chair and drinking my favorite drink, I keep my feet in pleasantly fresh water.

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But certainly an opportunity, which I enjoy as if I were on vacation.
In slippers, when I'm barefoot I don't think about anything, except how to relax and unwind.

I can't, like my friend, accept that my annual vacation and two or three weeks over the su mmer will be my only time to relax and enjoy myself (in flip-flops, of course) 😀