I know I do! Let’s face it, we are pretty much told to go go go all the time. If we are not doing something ‘productive’ we feel like everything is going to pile up and stress us out more. Or we feel like we are wasting our time.
In my heart I believe recharging is part of living life to the fullest. I’m left asking myself why do I feel so guilty when I give myself a chance to relax? I say give for a reason, because really there is always something that can be done. Work that can be finished, emails to write, phone calls that need to be made, the never ending CLEANING...and so it goes. These days I find myself relaxing very little.
Life can pass by so quickly. My son is 4, and honestly, where has the time gone? Adding relaxation to your life makes you a happier person. It enables you to live in the moment more. Why are we cutting it out of our lives? How many of you have one full day a week that you just let yourself relax? How about 1 hour or 30 minutes a day to unwind? Not very many of us I’m afraid.
Why is it that we feel bad if one day a week we don’t make any plans, don’t write up a to-do list, don’t work on all those chores and simply chill? We pressure each other, and even worse we pressure ourselves to be constantly productive. After all isn’t that how we measure success?
What is success really? To me it is a measure of how happy we are, how much we are enjoying the precious gift of life we have all been given.
I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t been allowing myself enough down time. There comes a point when you need to put things down and say that’s enough for today. Change the thinking from everything is going to pile up to I’m making it a priority to live my life to the fullest and be the happiest I can be in the time I am given.
Happiness is contagious, not only are you benefiting yourself, you are benefiting others. Commit to being a ray of sunlight in the life of others, and not the dark cloud of endless stress and to-dos. The time to get cheery is now. Make the rest of this spring one to remember!
What is your favorite thing to do when you allow yourself time to relax?