Break out, lie down, take a nap,

 Break out, lie down, take a nap,

Many of us have ‘holidays’ in the summer (or winter) periods, one, two or (the lucky ones) three or more weeks, not thinking of work or the day-to-day struggle of life. We swim, walk, ski, lie back, read, talk, travel, dance and generally seek a level of enjoyment we don’t have on a day-to-day level because of our hectic lives. 

The hectic days in the rest of the year are filled with work from which the finances come to pay for the Holidays. 

So, let’s get this straight, we work ourselves into burnouts, stress-related illnesses and such so that we can rejuvenate and heal ourselves during holidays to get us through the next months of work, work, work. Sounds like a vicious circle to me. 

What if we micro-manage? What I mean by this is not to look at life in years but in days. A year has twelve months, a day has 24 hours. 

24 hours minus 8 for a good night's rest leaves 16 hours. Minus, say, 8 hours of work and another 1.5 hours to and from work, you are down to 6.5 hours.

Another 2 hours for eating and food preparation per day; let’s just stretch that for a good average and say you have roughly about 4 hours left. 

4 hours to rejuvenate, rest, think, plan, play with the children, and maybe work on a hobby. Not a lot, but we can ‘work’ with that, right? 

We tend to plan our days but not our hours. We know we ‘have’ to go to work, or are expected to go and do things that are the social norm. So why don’t we actively also plan and reclaim those other few hours that are left? It’s as if we feel guilt when thinking of ‘not doing’, we feel we should always be ‘doing’. We lose contact with ourselves. 

‘Not doing’ isn’t in itself ‘not doing’(sounds funny right?)  by ‘not doing’ you are allowing yourself the space to reconnect with yourself. 

We are pounded with this unnatural ‘work ethic’ from the day we first go to school… ‘Lazy hands, devil's work’, ‘work shy’ , ‘not doing’ or lazing around is looked down on in our work-worshipping Western society.

Our slogan should be ‘in work we trust’ or ‘No Time To Think’. 

What I’m saying is this, and it is also this simple, the amount of stress-related illnesses and burn-outs, depression (the list goes on) that we have at the moment proves that we aren’t thinking the ‘day-to-day’ through. We live in function of ‘markets’, ‘deadlines’, profits and financial gain, we don’t live in function of ourselves, our lives - this one shot we have at a life on this planet. 

We live to serve a system, while it should be that the system works in function of our benefit, health, and life experience. We need to slow down, take a minute and think about this. 

We have worked ourselves into a ‘work frenzy’ so a happy few can earn more than the other 90% of us put together. 

I have no answers as to how to stop this ‘work’ snowball rolling, but what I do know is that ‘baby steps’ are usually the best way to start. 

So let’s start by reclaiming 4 hrs a day. Don’t waste these hours on increasing corporate greed. Rest, think, enjoy each other's company, don’t follow the sleepwalking herd. Turn off the social media, Television and other brain-dulling instruments that are used to keep us within the corporate boundaries. 

Break out, lie down, take a nap, read a book, stare into the distance, walk, talk and take a holiday every day. Even if it’s only a short break of an hour, reclaim governance over your life.