PAUSE -8.22- Self-Fending Fridays
REFLECTION: In a recent Life Balance seminar that I facilitated, we talked about what makes for a renewing vacation. As you might expect, opinions differed.
One participant reported her most relaxing vacation involved taking a cruise with her husband and children. She found the experience of being pampered and cared for by others (rooms tidied, meals served, entertainment arranged, technology unplugged) to be a rejuvenating contrast to her daily life.
In fact, she enjoyed the experience so much she has found a way to weave it into the regular flow of life by recreating a variation of the experience on a weekly basis. Since their return she has declared the last workday evening of each week to be ‘Fend For Yourselves Friday’. Family members fix their own meal,entertain themselves for the evening, and arrange their own transportation to any scheduled events.
She says its a blissful treat at the end of a busy week not to be currying, scurrying and hurrying on everyone else’s behalf.
ACTION: With summer vacation season around the corner, pay attention to what you find especially rejuvenating in your time off. Look for ways to build a piece of that experience into everyday life on your return.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.” – Earl Wilson
“If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.” – Dorothy Canfield Fisher
RESOURCE OF THE WEEK: Looking to stock up on a book or three for relaxing summer reading? Check out National Public Radio’s recommended reading list for a few ideas: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90589316