Delicious Nothings

Lost: The Ability to Relax

I don’t know how to relax.  Correction, I do know how to relax and how I want to spend my relaxation time, but I can’t seem to give myself permission to do so.  Confused?  Let me explain.

This upcoming Monday is Labor Day (in America).  That means I have a three-day weekend and plenty of time to do some things I can’t normally do.  Sure, I’ve got a ton of stuff do to (clean the apartment, work on some freelancing, finish some side projects…), but at the same time, I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had the time to do the things that I like to do (practice guitar, watch a movie, etc…).  Now a well-balanced person would say something like, “Ok.  You’ve got an extra day.  Finish your work and on the extra day you can take the day off and do whatever you want.”  I agree with this person and I’m attempting to follow their advice.  However, whenever I sit down to enjoy my well-deserved free time, I can’t get the other jobs out of my head.  So instead of just relaxing for two hours with a movie, I’m preoccupied the whole time worrying about the other things on my list that I “should” be doing.  And now I’m angry and frustrated because I didn’t get anything productive done and I didn’t get to relax.  Bleah.

So somehow, somewhere, the ability to give myself permission to just relax was knocked out of me.  I don’t know how it happened, but I’m determined to rememdy the situation.  Relaxation is such a vital part of a balanced lifestyle.  In fact, I contend that you are actually more productive if you take some time out for yourself than if you beat yourself up trying to get a million-and-one things done.  So if you see my ability to relax somewhere out there wondering around, let me know so I can go get it back and finally enjoy some quality, undisturbed R & R.