TIME TO RECHARGE

Learning is a lifelong endeavour, I was explaining to my son tonight. It was nothing that he wanted to hear as he is impatiently counting down the days until school is over. Until he gets to sleep in and have what he, and most kids, consider fun during the summer. Doing nothing.

I then wondered why we as adults couldn’t have a summer break as well. A time to recharge along with our children. A time to refresh old skills and learn new ones in order to avoid the burnout that usually occurs when we become fatigued by the repetitive actions of our daily schedules.

Though other countries might have something akin to a summer break for adults in terms of much more vacation time, the States do not. Taking a vacation is often not a priority, nor a possibility, unless you own a company and can make time to focus on your family.

Certainly, I enjoyed taking the occasional three months of summer off as a child, as my father owned his own construction business and was able to make his own hours. As an ordinary office worker, this is merely a dream. You would be fortunate to even be allowed to take your maximum two weeks of the year at one time.

But just imagine how much more productive we would all be if allowed to take more time off to be with our friends and family. To take time for growth. Time to recharge. To learn something new in order to bring a renewed perspective to share with our peers. Just imagine how much more relaxed we would be if allowed to ‘do nothing’, just as our children look forward to doing during the summer. Just imagine how much happier we would all be.