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Show j'i" "V ' jr V V. H 1 I " Y I Tern (ID'CIlaixek WUnfisitlle by David Fleisher Doing nothing isn't as easy as it looks , I've beer cutting in a lot of hours at work lately, so I decided over the weekend I would take Monday off. I figure I deserve a day off. You can't work seven days a week, including late nights, and expect to feel fresh every Monday. It's not humanly possible, plus it gives you indigestion, not to mention ulcers later in life. Overworking(1i)ecausejt's.taxing.pn your brain cells,,;) may also land you in the looney bin (I read an article about this in Reader's Digest). So, since I want all the dots on my dice later in life, and don' t want to end up like one of those sickies who scream obscenities at people ' from street corners, I decided to take the day off. I love having the day off. However, I have this little problem; I don't know what to do with myself. I assume that most people, who have the day off do fairly routine things. They clean up the house, pay bills, go to the mailbox, maybe even think about taking adult education classes at the university. They might go skiing, go to the bank, go grocery shopping, make phone calls to friends they haven't seen in years and write letters to relatives. I don't do any of those things because they all remind me of work in one way or another. I figure on my day off I should do totally non-stressful things. In fact, anything that requires more energy than opening a can of apple sauce is too much. Going to the bathroom is probably safe, but that gets boring after a while. I feel I should be doing something productive. I don't know how to say, "This is my day off and I'm going to forget about everything else in the world and just do nothing but relax." I'm afraid if I do that, I'll turn into something resembling an avocado, or warm toast. I don't know how to be mellow, even on my day off, which should be a time for major mellowness. I would love to sit . around all day with some sort of health food sandwich and say over and over again, "Hey, man, that's cool. Don't worry about it." As you may have guessed, one of my problems is that I'm from the East Coast. People from the East Coast don't have a clue how to relax.They only pretend to relax by going to Miami Beach every winter and getting sunburned. When people from the East Coast wake up in the morning, 'they leap out of bed and yell at the top of their lungs: "Oh my God! What do I have to do today!" The West Coast person Wakes up and whispers, "Don't worry " ' about it. If it gets done, it gets done." The ideal situation on my day off would be to accomplish something productive and to relax at the same time. But that's impossible. You can't produce something that's worth anything if your mind is in high mellow, although people from California would probably dispute that statement. The most prominent achievers are, basically, neurotics at heart. They never have a problem with their days off because they continue to act as if they were still at work. They don't sit around wondering what to do, like me. They do constructive things because it makes them feel useful and good inside. I wish I knew how to do nothing on my day off. If I could learn how to do that, I would consider it a major accomplishment in my life. Why do I feel that I have to do at least one thing that's worth something? Who would care if I did nothing useful? Who would care if I sat around, twiddled my thumbs and recited poetry from the 17th Century? That sounds far more relaxing than going shopping at Alpha Beta for kleenex. What is it about the human condition that requires a person to go shopping on his day off? I think God was born on the East Coast. Now that my day off is half over, I'm looking forward to returning to work tomorrow. It's been a very tiring day, " not to mention the fact I haven't accomplished one thing. I think I'll go to bed early tonight; that way I'll be fresh in the morning and ready for another week. |
