Time out to play, don’t feel guilty for having fun.
All work and no play… yeah we have heard that before. When all we do is work, sometimes we do lose all of our joy in life. My husband used to work upwards of 60-80 hours a week and was pretty grumpy. He made good money but I hardly saw him and my son spent a good amount of time in daycare when I was on the road. His bosses didn’t seem to care, in fact the manager could be a real tool about it. When my husband applied to another agency, the manager told the agency that my husband had a problem with child care. Pat told the interviewing panel it was because the company wanted him to work upwards of 14 hours a day. The panel stated they could understand my husband’s issue and felt the current employer was being unreasonable.
Now my husband works the standard 40, and has time to work and play in the garden. We go out to dinner together, see movies and visit the grandchildren. He was able to go to an artshow with me recently and we had a great time. While working in a creative industry, if all you are doing is slogging away, you can slog away your creative energy. There are people who can turn their angst into art, I’m not one of them.
I find more inspiration from love of nature and that means taking time to enjoy it. If I can’t enjoy the time in nature, it is difficult to be inspired by it. I don’t have to feel guilty about playing outside. The thing is, you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking time out to play. Philosophers say that man is one of the few creatures on earth that works to amass wealth all their life but never lives to enjoy it. Why bother? My mother has been living her second childhood for the last 15 years, working on a historical carousel. She does what she wants and spends time with her family and friends. Getting there was work but also fun for her as well. She worked as a professional artist tracking her goals like a coyote, chasing each direction wherever her nose took her. She has played with otters, touched the bear Gentle Ben (her name was Bozo) and collected Bison hair. She slept in Tipis, traipsed through forests, and drove across the country.
Life should be fun and the more fun you can have at work, the harder you will work for it. Consider your life choices and decide if what you are doing allows you to have a life that is good or just exist. You can be responsible and choose joy at the same time, even people who live a life dedicated to god have joy. Think about that, nuns have snowball fights and grow flowers, monks share jokes as do bishops. Laughter is holy, Native Americans will tell you that the Great Spirit is laughing all the time. Go ahead, have fun; it doesn’t mean you aren’t a responsible person. It just makes you healthy.