Wouldn't it be nice to get away from all the bad news?It's not that I don't believe it. I know it's true. What I'm trying to remember is that bad news is not the only thing that's happening. There are other things going on in the world besides job losses and tanking markets.
I heard on the radio last night that the unemployment rate in California is around 10% and in Los Angeles it's 12%. Yesterday, on the same station, I heard there will "no longer be room for slackers," and that in today's job market you have to be on top of your game to stay employed.
I get that, I know. But I don't see how you can stay at the top of your game without providing for some slacker time in your schedule. Book it in there! Give yourself a slacker time pod! Tuesdays at nine, Saturdays from noon to two, or even just ten minutes wherever you can fit it in. You've got to have a break from the world to be able to get back in there and give the world your best.
During your slacker time, I suggest you turn off the news. Detach. Let go of all the things you need and yes, all the people and things who need you. It doesn't mean the world isn't having a bad time. It doesn't mean you don't care. It just means you get a bit of time to refuel.
Am I making excuses for myself? Yes. And I'm telling myself, over and over again, that this, too, shall pass.
21 comments:
Hear, hear! Great advice (but must be done discretly...like when taking a bathroom break and going to the one on the far side of the building.) What a gorgeous picture with the Riders of North Way.
It would be nice to get away from the bad news, but it looks like we're gonna have at least four more years of it.
Hear, here, I'm for slacker time! M-F. Workdays = sat-sun.
Later - gotta get 2 work.
...A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away...
Gee Petrea, you seem to be advocating what some Italian clerics recommended for Lent! as reported in http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/switching-off-tuning-in.html
Gam zeh ya'avor.
Here here!
Excellent advise, Petrea. And a lovely photo too.
And by here here I meant hear hear! Or actually, hear HERE.
:-)
Quite right! Actually, nice words of encouragement that I shall try to bear in mind! Have a great weekend!
I always get so wrapped up in your words of wisdom, sometimes I forget the photo part. Just enlarged it and found those tiny horsies. I'd love to ride in those surroundings, through the pass-adena.
Here hear. One of my favorite places, and you were able to capture so much of it. After a season of heavy rain, that area w/the horses can be quicksand. My horse and I know from brutal experience.
You are very wise...and this advice is just what I need to hear! Thank you.
Excellent, Tash. The bathroom break on the far side of the building is a very good way to do it. When I worked for a production company I used to volunteer to do all the errands.
Cafe, it would seem the pundits disagree with you. You need a break!
Fascinating links today from both Elaine and Dina. Elaine, I never read the whole thing before, thank you. And Dina: I love the photos!
Is it "hear here," Laurie? I get what it means now that I see it before me. Does anyone know where it started? With town criers, perhaps?
Bonjour Cieldequimper. Bon weekend a toi aussi. I hope you get a break, too.
Karin, why don't I ever see you riding on the trails?
Hope, I don't know if I'm wise, just been around long enough to find philosophical excuses for resting. Also, I've experienced enough trial and error (plenty of error) to share. If that's wisdom, I've got plenty.
Great advice. I'm slacking as we speak!
Me and, my fellow Americans.
Stimulating the conversation. It's all for you, P!
What confuses me is that so many management gurus know that productivity drops when workers work too much. Rest workers are good workers. But these days it seems like employers want your blood, your liver, you kidneys and your talent.
That's a lovely scene and sage advice, especially for trying times like these.
Have a good time "slacking" this weekend...
This is very interesting and I totally agree with you! I've said 1000 times to myself I have to stop watching the news for a while... I know we have to be realistic but it seems nothing good is also happening and worst of all nothing good will happen! It's so depressing... everywhere!
Amen! Some of the busiest, most successful people I know actually find time to read a book. Although I am a reader of at least ten books a year, (which isn't much), I still think of that time as "leisure time," as in "selfish."
However, without taking time to recharge, regroup and refresh, we will loose that spot at the top. Even God commanded in the Bible that we take a day for rest--including the animals.
Think of those horses—think of what they're concerned about. They don't know about the foreclosures, or that it's the 2009th time the planet has passed this way, in its idiot circle, since a fictive rabbi was murdered for urging us to look beyond the problems of poverty to its cause, its relief …
Around our shining, vulnerable globe, animals suffer at the hands of industry because they're outside time—defenseless against the primates with the bulldozers & portfolios, who grind their homes into sawdust.
Todd Rundgren has a song that says "What would we do without Time on our backs? Time is not real. Time is an illusion!" Do I believe him? Do I have to, to unhook? Right now, Boz dozes in the living room, in a sunbeam, shaming my worries … his only concern is that the sun moves.
Like Galileo: "Still, it moves…" The earth turns; the mechanics of nature creak through their rounds. So the curse arises from our perceptions. We're animals burdened by an awareness of future consequences.
Would I could destroy history, the way Macbeth murdered sleep! But I have my chores to do. I'm like Beckett's "Unnameable"—I can't go on, I'll go on …
Marley, you made me laugh!
Margaret, it's unfortunate that so many managers are not management gurus, isn't it? Perhaps if they were our economy wouldn't be in such wretched condition.
Thanks, Ms. M.
Yes, JM, turn off the TV! At least for a while.
Good point, JT. And I believe it's Google where the employees get one day during the five-day work week to work on whatever they want to. If God and Google aren't good enough examples, I don't know what is.
J: I married a poet. How fortunate for me.
Wow, a poet indeed. Your J, eh?
Dina: J+P is my J.
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