A friend of mine just returned from a vacation with her family. Her reports "from the road" made it obvious that vacation was good for them all. For a short time, all the stresses of work and school and daily aggravation were put aside. The result, it seems, was a few day period of close to pure joy--that is, as far as I could tell from her emails.
Having been a freelancer for years (even when I worked at ABC, I was technically freelance), I have always found it hard to take time off. As a freelancer, time off means no income, and no income means stress once the vacation is over and the bills come in. So, while I have certainly taken days, it has always been with freelancer's guilt in the back of my head.
What I loved about my friend's emails from vacation was how clearly they conveyed the healing power of time away. And of real appreciation and enjoyment of that time. We can all make the choice (or go along with someone else's choice) to take time off. What we often forget is to immerse ourselves as deeply in our time off as we do in our work--to let time away be worth every day-- and every penny--we invest in it.
I am constantly learning from how people handle work. What I found out this week is that it's also good to learn from how people handle time away--vacation as it really ought to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment