Did you have a great Christmas this year? Are you already back at work…maybe even trying to catch up the time lost during the holiday? Already stressing over where the next dollar is going to come from?
Wait!!! Did you learn anything yesterday?
Too many Americans today are driven far beyond reason to be productive at all times. Heck it’s gotten to where people can’t even walk down the street without a phone plastered to their ear. (I sometimes think that’s because they’re afraid to be alone with their own thoughts.) Technology has indeed given tools that enable us to achieve far more than even our parents imagined. But achievement is not accomplished by increased busy-ness.
What? you say?
Yes, indeed! Achievement is accomplished when there is adequate time for daydreaming, creative "what if" thinking, planning and, yes, even play. Achievement is accomplished when we interact with other intelligent beings who are able and willing to engage in meaningful two-way communication.
All the knowledge in the world does little good for anyone until it is processed, synthesized and applied to making life just a little bit better for ourselves and others.
Consider planning to take a mini-Christmas break every day from here through the end of 2008. Make it at least an hour every single day. Devote that time to one of two activities:
1. quiet meditation (with or without soft background music)
2. visit with a friend, spouse or acquaintance — without talking business
I hear you. "This is crazy radical thinking", you’re saying. But it really isn’t. Business people in other countries apply this principal…in Britain, I believe, it’s called high tea. In Italy, Spain and elsewhere, I hear businesses actually shut down in the middle of the day for an extended lunch and siesta. Some adapt this practice somewhat to their individual circumstances…They’ll take brisk 5-10 minute walks or catnaps every hour, for example.
Whatever pattern you choose, do it without fail. Then, of course, you can go back to your feverish busy-work if you must. It may feel funny at first, but soon you’ll observe proof positive that you can indeed be more productive without increasing your level of stress.