I believe to have a happy and productive life we need to have work, play, and recovery – especially recovery. This post explores some ideas on how to make use of those times when we actually reach the end of our to-do list for the day and have a few minutes to spare.
The nature of life is cyclical:
- There are times when oceans have high tides and low tides
- There are times when we are awake, and a third of our life when we are asleep
- There is a time for plants to grow, and a time when they go dormant
- There’s a time to use our skills, and a time when we need to rest them
- There is a time to act, but there is also a time to think
- There is a time to work and a time to unplug
This is the way life works in its optimal form if it wants to be sustained:
- Life can’t be all high-tide otherwise it will drown people and property
- We can’t be on all the time, otherwise, we eventually collapse
- Plants can’t constantly be growing, because our planet would be completely overrun with vegetation (on second thought, that would be beautiful)
- We can’t be learning all the time, without time to apply it practically – otherwise, it is vain, useless knowledge
- Life can’t be all weekdays, because we need to appreciate the weekends
Life can’t be all rest either, because in that state when are we living our purpose and making valuable contributions to the world around us? The fact is life operates in cycles, and anything that is chronic (i.e. that doesn’t have natural cycles of ebb and flow)) are neither natural nor sustainable. And if we are in a chronic type of situation, like where we are in a work environment that is chronically demanding all of our time and all of our energy, and all of our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual capacity, without opportunity for recovery, then we are simply asking for the heart attack. Have you ever tried going three days without sleep? I once went 48 straight hours without sleep to work on a proposal and was so wasted by the end of it, that I actually needed a week to recover.
So in those rare and fortunate times when we do hit a lull, that is a time of natural rest and recovery, what do we do with it? Do we try to fill up our to do list again? Or do we realize this is a lull and that it is meant to be enjoyed? Hopefully, we do the latter. What follows is a list of 10 ideas to make the most of those times when things slow down just a little bit:
- Do some more meditation
- Do some extra exercise (EG, go for a walk, run, bike ride, hike)
- Cleanup/Declutter/organize
- Connect with someone
- Think and plan ahead
- Go home early
- Do a random kind act for someone
- Do you something you love but don’t do enough of
- Take a nap or sleep
- Go on an impromptu adventure
Nature, science, and common sense all provide overwhelming evidence that life is cyclical, and that without some form of recovery, there is an eventual failure or worse.
If you leave a light bulb on, without ever turning it off, eventually it will shorten the life of the bulb and burnout more quickly. So, instead of a light bulb lasting a year with normal [on and off] use, it will burn out within months if it is never turned off. Just like a lightbulb, we too need to “turn off” occasionally, otherwise, we run the risk of burning out as well.
Question: What’s your favorite way to recover your energy? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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