Absence of occupation is not rest...

How many times have you had an afternoon to yourself, for relaxing and generally winding down, and ended up equally as exhausted as you would have been had you gone to work? We see a spare hour or two and we seek to fill it with something, it's almost an automatic reflex. There are always things that need to be done, whether it be the dusting that you've been putting off, or a sudden urge to look for something you haven't seen for a while but which involves turning out a huge cupboard to find it. It's as though we're unable to relax.

I call it 'pottering' - if I have the house to myself I potter around, doing the little bits and pieces that I've been putting off, and then wonder where on earth the time has gone. We can sit down to relax, but then we turn on the television and get distracted - so our bodies then get a chance to relax, but our minds are still being stimulated. Are we that incapable of sitting still and just letting ourselves go? Apparently so, which begs the question 'why?'

Perhaps it's fear, perhaps it's a control issue. If we sit down and really give ourselves the time off that we need, are we afraid that we won't be able to get back into our routines afterwards? We push ourselves harder than ever - we work hard and play hard, and we force our bodies to cope with poor diets and little sleep. It's a way of life, we cram more things into the day, we make the day as long as possible, and we carry on more by sheer weight of momentum than anything else.

Are we scared to step off the roundabout of life in case we can't jump back on again?

I think that's the answer. If you disturb your routine it's harder to get back into it - having a lie-in on the weekend makes it harder to get up on the Monday morning, and taking a day off to relax makes it infinitely harder to go back to work. Letting someone else take over the household chores is fine, but when you have to pick up the reins again there's a slight sense of resentment. Perhaps it's not so much a case of being unable to pick up the routine again - maybe we're just afraid that we won't WANT to.

Many people do jobs that they despise, have fallen into patterns that they don't like - but they carry on because it's expected of them, and because they've come to expect it of themselves. We take jobs because they offer great opportunities and fantastic salaries, and we revel in the benefits of that, but over time we start to resent them. Mature life brings responsibilities, and once you're accustomed to living in a certain way, it makes it that much harder to re-evaluate your life and contemplate changing it.

If life stresses you out, and your job depresses you, don't suffer needlessly. There will always be another job out there that will give you the same, if not better, benefits - you just need the courage to step off the roundabout and find it.

02/03/2004 ©