February 18, 2010

17/365 Days: Me (and Friends) Time

We all have lives. We all have families, regardless of whether we simply live our lives as people who have grown around, with and because of a group of people, or whether we are taken care of our own. We all have responsibilities and that last episode of LOST to catch up on before the next episode airs. Very, very few of us take time out of our days and nights to indulge in purely recreational, self-fulfilling activities that are completely and utterly selfish and one-sided. While words such as self-fulfilling and selfish may latch onto you as very negative things to do, when it comes to relaxation, it is just about the best thing you can do.

We have all heard of the term “mental health days,” but the term is often tossed around as a joke between women as to what they wish they could do–if only they could afford the day off or were able shirk their daily duties to a fellow co-worker for the day. When it comes to women actually taking a true mental health day to do something fun and fulfilling for themselves, we may as well be living in a fantasy world because we just don’t do that and if they do, they take that dangerous day off of work to catch up on their list of errands that must be completed in order to live in a house that doesn’t smell faintly of gym socks or for functions or other obligations we really couldn’t fit into our schedule, but tried to convince ourselves we could.

I did not post on Woman Tribune yesterday. I thought about it and really sat down at the computer with the intention of writing and putting more content out there, but when it came down to it, my head and my heart wasn’t in it and the worst kind of blogging you can do is forced blogging when you’re just not feeling it. Through the years, I’ve noticed that when I forced myself to put content out there when I really just didn’t feel like it and wasn’t passionate about it, my hits would decline over time and my number of subscribers would follow suit. I was creating the same amount of content, but really, I knew it was all filler–and so did my readers. So instead of posting here yesterday, my partner and I hit up the store (in the middle of a snow storm, woops,) and filled up on the most junk food we have bought in a very long time. When we got home, we both went to our computers, but instead of working, we decided that it was time to spend some time together doing something we both love–play video games. And yes, we do consider him sitting in his office upstairs at his computer and me sitting downstairs at my computer “spending time together” if we’re both logged into the same video game and talking through Skype. We’re nerds like that.

We ended up playing Empire Builder with a friend of ours last night for over nine hours. That sounds extreme and of course I do not want to imply that everyone has nine hours to sit at the computer getting nothing but high scores on a video game accomplished, but being such a creature of the computer and such a video game nut, I needed a day of nothing but gaming to let me relax, rid my head of my absolutely insane list of things I need to accomplish, have been wanting to accomplish and have been trying to make myself accomplish. After last night and sitting here today, I don’t have to force a thing and I’m back to my normal, workaholic self.

So, in conclusion, regardless of your list of errands or the amount of minutes or hours you have to spare in a day, take some time to do something that you genuinely enjoy doing; something you may even feel guilty about because it is so self-indulgent. Do it and when you’re through and you have allowed yourself that time, you will come back to your list of errands, because they never do just disappear, regardless of how much we may want them to, an you will feel refreshed and be ready to get to work.

By Holly

3 Comments

Posted in Womanly Care , Your Style

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About the Author: Holly Ord

In addition to being the Founder and Editor of Woman Tribune, Holly Ord is a freelance writer, web designer and developer, feminist activist and blogger, and hopeless video game addict. She lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania and has been blogging on liberal politics and gender equality on her personal website, Menstrual Poetry since 2007.

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3 Comments on 17/365 Days: Me (and Friends) Time / Add Your Comment

underground water tanks says:

February 20, 2010 at 10:16 am

in 24 hrs a day, only if you spend few minutes in doing the work which you enjoy, you’ll feel like enjoying your LIFE.you’ll find a meaning to your life.

water pumps says:

February 20, 2010 at 10:18 am

try to spend some time in exploring yourself and do the activities that you love. then you find your life interesting.

Kristian Simmelink says:

November 24, 2010 at 3:19 pm

http://www.blurty.com/talkread.bml?journal=sherie49&itemid=476

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