Life gets hectic, we all know this. More and more it’s crazy for people. Jobs, school, demands of home, family, and/or friends. Too many of us charge through, day in and day out, and too often there’s this thing called burn-out that happens. But we keep going.
I learned through the years, when experiencing “burn-out” nothing goes right, everything is a monumental chore. And nothing fixed it until I simply stopped and got off the hamster wheel. But many people do other things to cope, prescriptions, self medicate, and others run ragged until health problems slow them down.
Adults need a time out.
My dad used to sit on the back porch and watch the birds in the trees, or “the back of his eyelids” as he called it. It took me a while to realize the value in doing the same, to unwind and do little more than listen to the breeze in the leaves and birds in the branches.
I also know people who feel as if doing such is a waste of time and they must push on, forever trying to get to some higher level of accomplishment, refusing to take much time to do anything unwinding, but never quite seeming to get to that level they fight so hard to find.
I've witnessed people running themselves and their children ragged, getting to work, school, and a crazy amount of activities, sometimes for no reason more than just because others do it, someone said they should do it, it will look good to someone else, or on some paper.
Maybe it’s a societal thing that makes us believe that, to be successful even at a young age, we need to push and push and push and run crazy.
Needing downtime is not a weakness.
Knowing when it’s needed and making the time to do it is a strength.
Some people unwind at the movies, or a dinner out with friends, or a book with a cup of tea, or a day cleaning their home, or a glass of wine and a warm bath. Whatever it is, we need to make time for it regularly. And we need to stop feeling guilty for it.