Setting Aside Personal Time Is Crucial

At the risk of sounding philosophical, you only live once, and then it is all over. Last I checked, I was 16 years of age and cycling in Bethpage State Park with my friend, Eric. I had and enjoyed scabbed knees, a healthy sweat on my young forehead, and chasing down ice cream trucks for 99 cent Popsicles. After a couple of quick blinks, fifteen years have passed, I am a homeowner, and am currently eight years removed from college. My mortgage bill is due in a couple of days, the price of a gallon of milk nearly makes me swoon, and the muffler on my truck is starting to get obnoxiously loud. Only after taking a healthy swim in the ocean does reality have a tendency of smacking me right in the face. Where did the time go? Life is indeed short, and sometimes work and its necessary evils have a way of swallowing a vast majority of a person's time.

But it does not have to be this way. Workaholics usually find it quite difficult to cast their work aside and miss the aspect of stopping to smell the roses. Or, in some cases, these roses are totally neglected, as one day plunges into another. Setting aside the time, even if it is only an hour per day, remains vital in people's mental health. Constant work and stress is a surefire way to shaving years off one's life. But how on Earth can this be accomplished in a society that demands three jobs out of one career-obsessed servant? How odes the paperwork get completed if the automatic assumption is that people working for a salary wage must take their work home with them?

The answer remains simple. Ironically, a constant "I must complete my assignment before I do anything recreational" is the wrong attitude, particularly for the person who works eight or nine hours straight. Giving your brain a "breath of fresh air" will actually work wonders; allowing yourself a break, even a thirty minute bicycling voyage, will enable the mind to perform sharper than a constant barrage of alienated work. Put the papers aside, turn off the cellphone and computer, and experience some of the pleasures that have long been forgotten.

1.) Set a Specific Cut-Off Time