Stopping and smelling the roses

I have never been able to just sit and do nothing. To prevent this scenario from catching me unprepared, I kept books in my purse, books in the car, and a selection of poetry in the john. I was thrilled to discover that I could download the Kindle book reader to my phone which meant another venue to read should I be caught without a book.

Times have changed. I can now sit and stare mindlessly into space. I got lots of practice doing this over the last year, and frankly, I wondered what kept me from taking this up much sooner.

I've had lots of free time of late which gave me the opportunity to catch up on my reading and view movies that I'd missed while grinding through my doctoral studies. It would be great if I could report that I'd finally made it through just one of Joyce's novels or finished reading the Faulkner collection, but alas that is not the case. Most of the books I read featured serial killers, steroid-enhanced law enforcement agents, or girls with dragon tattoos. As for film, the closest thing I came to the classics was "The Big Lebowski", featuring Jeff "the dude" Bridges?

I also had time to just sit. Sometimes alone but often with friends and family. We talked about the important things and even the trivial ones and on occasion we just sat and were quiet.

I hope that as I continue to improve, I retain the ability to just relax and not feel that every moment has to be filled with some kind of activity. I used to believe that I had to work 24/7. I was always on email or telephone solving problems, keeping ahead and in the end all it got me was burnt out and tired. So I want to incorporate separation of job and life. And maybe, eventually, I'll have enough mental energy to read something with a little more substance than crime novels. Or maybe I'll just spend more time with friends and family, and they can tell me about what they've been reading.