One of the dangers — for lack of a better way of putting it — of working for yourself is that your work is pretty much always there, and we have an inclination to pretty much fill our time with the things that need to get done.
Next thing you know, such notions as "taking a day off" end up going out the window.
And if you're like me, working at something that doesn't really depend on the "external schedule" of the greater world, you effectively lose track of such ideas as "weekends" and even "Sundays." All days are pretty much the same.
I suppose we should also try to pinpoint what "a day off" actually means, because chances are there are differing definitions for different people.
I don't consider things like "going to a family gathering" (which means you're not really working) a REAL day off, because you may not be doing something that was truly your choice, entirely on your time.
For example, I took several days away in order to be at our daughter's wedding, but it wasn't exactly time OFF. Fulfilling an obligation — no matter how pleasant and fun it might be — isn't necessarily a "day off."
At least not in my world.
For me, the most recent time I can readily think of as REAL time off was when we went to Denmark in June of 2015... and literally did nothing at all in a location where "they" pretty much couldn't intrude and drag us back into the version of reality we had escaped from.
So why is it so difficult to truly take time off, in this day and age?
And I'm not just pondering this from my own perspective, but from the many people I know who all seem to contemplate similar dilemmas.
I regularly communicate with my cousins back in Denmark, and suspect that it might be partially a cultural thing, related to the USA rather than the world in general. My cousin often points out that "people work too much" in the US...
That said, I have periodically caught my cousin also using the words "I just don't have time," so maybe the real issue at hand is that we have created a system that leaves perpetually with "too much on our plates," even if many of those things are there as a result of our own choices... not because they are forced on us.
Perhaps what we have lost along the way is the ability to choose to not do something. That's not about saying no to one thing so we can do another, but about saying no so we can just sit still and take a day off.
When was the last time you were able to just sit down all day and read a book you've been wanting to read... without having a worry in the world about anything else?"
Last time I did that was on aforesaid trip to Denmark, 7 1/2 years ago.
Which isn't to say that I haven't sat down and read a book in that long... just that those moments of reading have always included a certain element of thing that "I SHOULD really be doing something else."
How we just forgotten how to truly relax?
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Created at 2023-02-28 00:37 PST
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