Taking a Day off
/What does ‘taking a day off’ mean when one is post-career? Next year it will be a decade since I left my career – my formal ‘work’ - behind. I’ve filled my days with a wide variety of activities that vary from day to day, season to season…evolving over the years. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about what is means now to ‘take a day off’ --- I still do it occasionally. There are some characteristics of those days:
I clear the day of other commitments. For example – I write my daily blog for the ‘day off’ ahead of time and post it so that it gets released at the appropriate time without anything more from me.
The day is filled with activities that are different than my normal…maybe it is spent traveling or in a special class or on a field trip…or maybe it is simply a pajama day at home, being lazy.
The normal daily goals I have for myself (books browsed, steps, Zentangle tiles, calorie limit, yoga time) become optional. I might still achieve some of them….but they are not required.
I don’t take a day off completely very often because I enjoy every day so much. There is no equivalent to the surge of activity that used to happen during my career that would exhaust me emotionally and physically…. necessitating a day off to recover. A partial day off does happen with some regularity because achieving some of the daily metrics takes enough time that I can’t achieve them all with the other unique activities of the day. There is so much to enjoy every day!