A Day Off

You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can’t put anything in.

Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.

Master Ryutan

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of colleague’s blogs about slowing down and ironically when I picked up a book (Just One Thing) I am reading and the chapter was on the very same thing.

It was interesting to read, “Twenty years ago, (when you bumped into a friend and asked “how are you?”) the typical answer would be “fine.” But today the reply is more likely to be “busy!”

Sometimes I find it extremely difficult to really let go and take a day off, really off, without my mind getting in the way saying things like “you should be doing…. You shouldn’t be doing this…what are you lazy or something?…everyone else is working so hard and you’re just sitting here at the beach”… and so on and so on.

However, I do realize that it’s extremely important for me to get off the fast track and take time to regenerate… otherwise I burn out and when I burn out… I crash.

I come from a long line of workaholics, so it’s easy for me to fall into that mindset… marathons of working and producing…. So this month, I am actually scheduling day offs into my calendar.

Last time I took some time, I drove out to Jalama Beach with Luna and it was as if I took a week off! I took my notebook and actually wrote some prose.

Yes! With a real pen and everything… no computer… just paper, the view of the great ocean and me…(and Luna!).

Just the drive out there was calming… I could feel myself decompressing…and after a couple of hours of writing, walking and inhaling that delicious ocean air… wow… I felt rejuvenated and ready to go back and work, but from a more grounded, less stressful place.

Of course, with all the fast paced and need for speed conditioning in our culture right now, the next challenge was not to apologize for it… and so… I don’t.

I hope you get to take some time ‘off’ to regenerate…fill up and slow down. The people around you will appreciate it too.

Here’s to being ‘off!”

EnJOY!

Robbie