The Weekend Experiment

It's hard to believe that this is the last week of January. Three weeks ago, people were making new year's resolutions, and I was participating in Facebook discussions like this one:

Facebook friend's status: They say that what you do on New Year's Day will be your focus for the year. Yesterday, I was blessed to spend the day writing. How about you? Did you start the year with a special focus?

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My comment: Laziness :-) Since "retiring" and embarking on new pursuits, I've been a hard charger, and because I'm doing what I love, work time and down time boundaries have blurred. I'm working on trying to take holidays when normal people take them.

On January 1, as everyone else was generating resolutions, I was generating a nervous tic. 

My Facebook status: Resolutions? Expectations? Hopes and dreams? Too much pressure for the first day of a new year. I prefer to evolve slowly.

A friend's comment: I was just reading a blog that suggested you select one word for the whole year. Then try to apply that word to your life throughout your whole year. Thought that was an interesting idea.

I did, too. And as I thought about that at the turn of the year, the word that came to mind was "balance." If you read last Monday's blog, you can see how well that's working out for me.

So, I started the new year with no stated resolutions. Lots of ideas, some goals but no "this is the year that..." promises.

But I keep coming back to my own response to the special focus my writer friend referenced. I find it very difficult to separate laziness from well-deserved down time -- not for other people, mind you -- just for myself. There are so many things I want to do that I feel as though I ought to always be doing something, at least until I run out of the physical and/or mental energy to make that happen.

But over and over again the same scenario plays out. When I simply cave in and allow myself to just be lazy for a day (which rarely means accomplishing absolutely nothing), the payoff comes in the days that follow. My energy is renewed, my resolve refreshed and a highly productive day follows. Sometimes, one highly productive day sparks several more as well.

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Slowly, I am learning this. Slowly, I am experimenting with the idea of weekends -- a time when I don't make a list that contains more items than hours in the day.

But let's not call it a resolution. I prefer...experiment.

As we move into February, I look forward to more of the "Weekend Experiment." I have no illusions of something as ridiculous as four weekends a month, but the occasional day off when everyone else takes one might not be such a bad idea.

And if it works, I'll have ten more months in 2015 to perfect it.