“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
~Sydney J. Harris
Image courtesy of Ohmega1982 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Every once in a while, even when there’s stuff that you ought to be doing, I think it’s more beneficial to spend the day doing nothing. You know, looking back over that sentence, I think maybe it should say, “especially when there’s stuff that you ought to be doing”. Honestly, that’s precisely the time it’s most important to take a step back and regroup.
Lately, I am really beginning to feel the strain of always having something to do. Deep down, I’m glad that I front-loaded my classes so that this final semester only requires six hours, but I am also really beginning to wish that I’d had an actual summer break. A new job while carrying nine hours over summer semester (which followed a jam-packed spring semester of eighteen hours) really wore me down, and a couple of weeks between summer and fall just didn’t let me wind down much. Add to that trying to launch the Paralegal Student Association, and also trying to figure a way to stay involved with PTK, and I am beginning to feel stretched far too thin.
So, even though I’ve got a couple of chapters I need to read, an assignment that needs doing, and a bunch of PSA stuff that needs sorting out, those things didn’t get done today. Instead, I slept in this morning, snoozed a little on the couch this afternoon, had cereal for lunch and a simple tuna and crackers for dinner, and worked my way through a whole bunch of programming piled up on the DVR. (I’m all caught up now with The Glades, Rizzoli and Isles, and Perception, and hope to finish up with Longmire and maybe one other show before I have to jump back on the treadmill Tuesday morning.)
Not that I never take time for myself even when I should be doing other things, but then I’m usually overcome with guilt and end up staying up far too late to finish up the things that needed doing, thereby undoing any possible benefits of the relaxation time. But not today. Today was totally a mental health day, and I’ve got zero guilt. I might even do it again tomorrow.
