A 2010 Harvard study found that most adults spend about half of their waking hours day-dreaming. We think about the next vacation, our dream life, whatever we’d rather be doing over what we are doing in the moment. We daydream to escape reality.
These days, Americans are working harder than ever. In fact, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, today’s American worker is 400 percent more productive than the average American worker in 1950, and for no increased benefits! In comparison to European workers, Americans receive less paid sick time, paid vacation time, and paid maternity/paternity leave than in many developed nations. We are one of the most overworked nations in the world, and we the people are not even profiting from it!
Many of the young workers I know have more than one job, go to school full-time while having a full-time job, and work more than 40 hours a week. With so few benefits from our overworking, no wonder so many Americans are depressed and suffer from anxiety. We are not taking the time to recharge, and the simple fact is that if you don’t take the time to relax, your body will eventually make the time for you.
I am perhaps one of the worst offenders of finding time to relax, and lately I have felt the effects of this. Every single day I have to write, whether it be for school, for work, or for this blog. From first hand experience, I know how being so busy all the time can squelch creativity. It’s hard to be inspired when you’re so exhausted. Sometimes, I feel as if my work is suffering due to overextending myself.
At this point though, I think I would need more than one day to recharge. I have run myself so ragged that a simple day off won’t fix what I need mended. But if I don’t find the time to recharge, I’m partly afraid of my body will choose the time for me.
Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time while doing things day-dreaming — thinking about my next trip, about spring break, about summer vacation, about the week of my birthday (which I usually have off work).
We all know how healing nature can be; there’s study after study that proves that time spend in nature helps reduce stress, anxiety, and worries. One of my favorite places on Earth is Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I have spend several weekends there, usually booking a hotel with Caesar and spending the weekend hiking, resting, and meditating. Two days in CVNP can heal months worth of internal wounds caused by overexerting myself.
I want to go badly, but I always find reasons to stay home. Maybe you’re like that? You think to yourself on Monday, “This weekend I’m going to do that thing I love that makes me happy,” but then by Friday you are so tired that you cancel all your plans and opt to stay home, where almost no healing is being done. Maybe if you just took the trip, did the thing you loved, you’d feel even better after the whole week.
It feels like something is always holding us back. I can think of nothing I love more than spending a weekend with Caesar in a comfy hotel after a 10 mile hike — so why do I stay home?
Allow me to talk to myself for a minute (sometimes you need a pep talk from the inner you): you are never going to regret taking a trip. You will never regret doing something you love, but you may regret staying home when you and your dog are healthy enough to go. He won’t always be able to make those long hikes, and then you will look back to this day in late February when he was 8 years old thinking, “I should have taken that damn trip.”
*I wrote the entire part above days ago… I didn’t post it because I wanted to reflect on what I had just told myself. Later that day, I finally took my own advice and booked a three day stay for CVNP for Caesar and I during spring break.*
Maybe these are the things we need to repeat to ourselves over and over until we actually change ourselves. It seemly worked for me. A reminder to myself and to you: stop working yourself to death for a job that probably doesn’t care about you, stop day dreaming your life away, and just take the damn trip.