Today I am grateful for lazy days. I have precious few of them it seems. Even on weekends I have a variety of things to do and if I should fail to do them on Saturday a haze of guilt hangs over me, causing me to either push myself to be “productive” on Sunday or dooming me to feel even guiltier if I don’t for having “wasted” the day. Never mind that the work weeks are often draining, as is the average two hours per day I spend commuting. The weekend for many folks is meant to be spent recovering from the week, rejuvenating and refreshing for the week ahead, not for doing even more work. So yeah, I am grateful for lazy days.
I had a late breakfast with my sister, we talked over a lot of important things with some funny trivial matters sprinkled in. On the drive back to her house we talked more, chatting about our jobs and other challenges we were facing. We plopped down on her sofa in the family room and proceeded to talk for still longer as the early afternoon stretched toward evening. It was pleasant and laid back and totally wonderful, particularly as we hadn’t sat and talked together like that for months. It was a completely delightful way to spend the afternoon; I could have stayed there for a few more hours if I hadn’t needed to go home to take Honor out for her walk.
Such a relaxing, laid back way to spend the day. When I finally got home and fed the dog and myself, I settled down to watch some college football and catch up on a few television shows I had recorded but hadn’t made time to watch. I’d reasoned that as I had essentially lazed away most of the day, I might as well finish the evening that way. Tomorrow I’ll rise early as I usually do on Sundays and see if I can manage to accomplish some of the tasks I didn’t get to today. My guess is that I won’t get the leaves raked on top of everything else I need to get done, but we’ll see. The weather is supposed to be fine so I might have to make time for the raking and leave something else unfinished.
All of this reminds me of the night time prayer from the New Zealand prayer book that I recorded in this blog a few days ago: “It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” Let it be indeed. There will always be something that needs to be done. Sometimes it’s good to simply do nothing. And while it might not feel wise to leave some things undone, it’s important to weigh the consequences of action or inaction and decide accordingly.
The other day a colleague from work emailed me to say they were feeling ill and would stay out in the morning, but because of meetings they had on their schedule might have to come in the afternoon whether they felt better or not. I gently nudged them to consider the possibility that they might need to stay home the whole day rather than drag themselves in later. “If you were in the hospital or simply too ill to get out of bed you wouldn’t be having this meeting. Nothing bad is going to happen if you have to reschedule it.” Relieved, he stayed home and got a bit more much-needed rest.
We all need lazy days–those where we sleep in or lay around all day dozing or resting our bodies. Our bodies will in fact rebel if we don’t rest and recuperate periodically, and we get sick. It’s the body’s way of saying, “I told you to slow down, rest, and take care of yourself. If you won’t, I will.” And so we find ourselves flat on our backs being forced to rest at least long enough to fight off the illness. I am grateful for the common sense I have to sometimes listen to my body before it gets sick and take a break from all the mad activity.
I plan to listen to myself a bit more often in the days ahead. I will always have things to do, will often feel the pressure to push myself to somehow find a way to get it all done. But as the prayer says, at the end of the day if I have not gotten most, some, or even any of it done, I have to learn to let it go. It has often been said that at the end of our lives we won’t sit around wishing we’d worked harder and done more. We’ll look back at lazy days spend hanging out jawing with our loved ones and be grateful for the time well spent. I for one plan to “do” more of those things.
