Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

On the Disney cartoon, “Phineas and Ferb”, Phineas always makes the proclamation, “I know what we are going to do today,” and off the boys go to create something fantastic that leads to some sort of adventure for that one day.  This is how these cartoon characters spend their summer vacation.  There are many mornings where I would love to wake up and say to Debbie, “I know what we are going to do today” or “I know what we are going to do this week.”  If I randomly woke up and said that, I am pretty sure the response would be something along the lines of “Don’ you have work today?” or “Did you check the red book?” or “That’s nice, did you reset the alarm for me?”  Oh, that red book I mentioned, that is the book for our calendar.  If it is not written in the red book, the event does not exist.

Our lives have become so structured, acts of spontaneity need to have a scheduled time to exist.  Do not get me wrong, planning our time, as in structuring our days, does provide us with the opportunity to be more productive. The accountant and project manager in me understands this implicitly, however, the creative, musician side of me does not.  Having recently returned from a great vacation shortly before writing this has probably also tainted my thinking.  As is usually the case, I now long for a time in my life where I can wake up, decide to hop on a plane and go somewhere on short notice.  I do not do extended vacations, but a few days here and there…Instead I let my imagination run wild about visiting some exotic locale, where everyone speaks perfect English and looks like the people that I know.  Not reality!  My wife tends to be more pragmatic, in that we have something to look forward to by planning a trip next year.

I think that as kids, we do not realize how great it is to have off during the summer.  A vacation from school for approximately two months in elementary through high school and then three or more months in college.  And, during that vacation, you can be at camp (which is what I did growing up – Go, Camp Echo Lark), hang with your friends, or OMG, maybe if you are lucky; go on vacation during your vacation!  Can you imagine telling your boss that you are taking summer break with your kids?  OK, we can all imagine that, but if you want to work and provide for your family, those words are never uttered.  My father, at the end of a vacation, would offer his sage words that going back to our every day routine makes you appreciate the vacations even more, because if every day you were on vacation, there would not be a vacation.

“There’s 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it.”

I Gotta Get Out of This Place!

We just returned from a much-needed family vacation.  I find it important that I take a break from my daily routine and surroundings.  Not that my routine changes drastically, but it is a good time to put the daily stresses and strains of adult life on hold for a while to give us some fresh perspective on our lives.  My kids laughed at me when they caught me sitting alone on the beach and asked what I was doing.  I calmly answered that I was meditating.  There is a good chance that in their mind they had pictured me sitting cross-legged, wearing one of my many tie-dyes, levitating and chanting “Om”.  It is hard to explain to our teens that time away from the pull of work, etc. is a great time to reflect on where we are, where we want to be and what it would potentially take to get there.

I recently had a conversation with someone that I have known for years.  He commented on the fact that this was the first time in many years that he took time off and went away.  He was not so amazed at the getting away part, but at the way he felt while half way across the country and the energy he had upon his return.  This small conversation was a good example of focusing on the day-to-day activities that we fail to see that we are in need of much needed down time.  As much as we try to be, human beings are not quite the Energizer Bunnies we envision ourselves.  The lesson that he realized was that he did need to take time, even if it is only a long weekend, to rest and re-energize himself.  Something done since the initial trip and something he is planning again in the future.

For me, the following are signs that I need a vacation:

1.    I need more sleep – I have always been good functioning on 6 hours of sleep a night, plus one night a week sleeping 8 hours.  The last few weeks, I needed much more.

2.    My focus wavers – I find that I am easily distracted from the tasks in front of me.

3.    I have less patience – I am generally a patient person, so once this starts to go…

4.   Socialization skills lessen – I find that while I am happy to be around people, I talk less and might seem less friendly than usual.

5.  Receive strange looks from my family – My comments tend to lag a few minutes behind conversations, which lead my wife and kids to question what conversation I am participating in.

In the weeks leading up to the vacation, the brain was definitely not firing on all cylinders.  Now that I have had the opportunity to recharge my battery – I am back!  Bottom line – do not be a schtarka (referring to a brave, strong man, not the Get Smart character), take vacations!  They are good and healthy for your mind, body and soul!

Feel free to share below the signs you notice when it is time to take a vacation.

Life with a Lot of Noise

“What did you say?”  At face value, that brief question, without any vocal reflection, potentially can be taken as someone about to pick a fight, someone that just received bad news, or someone you are trying to hear.  We all know people that have some difficulty hearing, whether do to age, illness or simply selective hearing.  One gentleman I know, whose hearing has deteriorated with age, often asks that when we are in a group that only one of us speaks so that he can hear what is being said.  His ability to decipher a single voice out of all the ambient sounds and from a group of voices has become difficult. 

Recently, I was asked a question to help someone out.  The specifics of the situation are not important.  What is important is that to this person, an issue arose that could taint people’s perception based on someone else’s condition.  The question was how do we address this situation and stop it from happening in the future.  After much thought and reflection, I realized that the situation, when taken by itself, could be of concern.  Andy Andrews writes about perspective and how if you change your perspective, the situation could be very different from originally perceived.  Once I applied his thinking, I realized that the situation in front of us could be taken as a positive.  If people’s perception leads them to lower expectations, then we have the opportunity to come out looking better by comparison.  Sometimes, a potentially innocent comment taken out of context, like the game of telephone, can become something different from what was originally said. 

In the example above, if we keep our focus on the bigger picture, some of the smaller issues that arise should be recognized as such and not distract us from the direction we are heading.  Similar things can happen in the work place, where a person is involved in an important project.  With deadlines looming, they are off working on something with a low priority that can wait until the major project is completed.  I know that “in the heat of the moment” we sometimes are lured into listening to the noise that surrounds us.  However, just as the gentleman mentioned earlier, we need to pick out the voices we should be hearing and tune out the ambient sounds. Sometimes, the noise is just noise.

What is the Priority?

In my household, there are four different people – my wife, my two daughters and myself.  In the band I play in, there are five other musicians beside me; two of them are my brothers.  At the place that employs me, there are 1300 people worldwide, out of which I interact with about 30.  At the house of worship I attend, there are 400+ family units.  I am my own person and at the end of the day, I need to prioritize my actions based upon my perception of the situation, potential outcomes and maintain my personal beliefs and values.  As John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”  If I were an island, my prioritization would be all that matters; however, I exist with other people as I have outlined.  We need to be aware of the people that surround us and their priorities, as they could have an impact on our outcomes, or they could cause conflicting problems or provide us with other potential options.

Some time ago, I walked down into our basement, where I have an office.  As I stepped off the bottom step onto the carpeted floor, I realized that the color of the carpet look different in one spot – It was wet.  Instead of assessing the situation, I was all prepared to blame the dog. As I was ready to run up the steps, I figured on looking at the carpet.  Yes, I bent down to smell the wet spot – nope, that is not the dog.  “Oh, no!” I thought when I came to the realization that we had a leak in our water heater.  What a mess!  I ended up having to place a claim to our insurance and have someone come in to dry out the basement, remove / replace the carpet and replace the drywall.  Ripping out the carpeting meant clearing off my bookcase and emptying file cabinets.  For a small space, there was a lot of stuff.  We bought all different types of containers to move the stuff into.  Once the basement was usable, I now had the task of going through the containers and sort things out.  I threw away some things, regrouping like-kind items and separated out the papers to be shredded.  I was off to a good start.

…and that is where it ended. I know that to do tasks correctly, it will take dedicated time to go through and review.  I have tucked the cartons into an area that is not currently in use.  For me, based on the time needed to complete this task, it is not a priority.  For my wife, however, this is a priority.  The space where the cartons are located is where we used to have the band equipment when we held practices in our house.  Once the band “relocated” to my brother’s basement, we had the space to use for the family, which my wife suggested would be a great location for a stationary bike and / or treadmill or to use as a room for our kids to hang out in.  Makes sense.  I do not exercise (I know that is not ideal), so my priorities stay as they were.  My wife, on the other hand, goes to the gym.

In my example, our priorities are very different.  My wife is good about gently reminding me about the basement.  I give some non-committal response.  As a parent, there is a similar prioritization difference when it comes to my daughters cleaning their rooms.  They know where there things are (in a pile somewhere) and the way their rooms look is not a priority for them, no matter how many times I gently remind them to clean up.  I know that when they get annoyed with their rooms or have a new friend come over, the priority to clean their rooms goes up and they then put aside the time to straighten up their bedrooms.  I guess that I am not much different from my kids - when I get annoyed at looking at the containers taking up usable space, my priorities will shift (and come into synch with my wife’s), and I too will “clean up.”

Wake Up, It Is Summertime!

And our hibernation period has once again come to an end and it is time to wake up and face the world!  This is how I feel each year at the end of June as we head into the summer months.  From September onward, our lives feel focused on what ends up being indoor-based activities, children off at school and preparing for the winter ahead.  While we have some semblance of a social life, once the summer comes along, our activity levels go up significantly.  Whether it is celebrating Independence Day (including the nearest weekend), graduations, parties, vacations and other social outings enjoying the warm weather, our calendar, and therefore our time, becomes very full.  This is truly a great time of the year.  The difficulty, however, becomes managing, or better put, prioritizing, our time.

I know that during the year, between spending time with my family, work, volunteering as an officer at our Jewish Center, Toastmasters, playing in a band and my social life, the months tend to be very full.  There does seem to be a certain rhythm to the weeks, as most of the activities fall into some type of cycle.  In between, I am able to take on some of the things that constitute personal development, which include reading and writing.  I understand quite well that I should not confuse activity with productivity.  I am happy to be busy and pursue the things that are important to me so that I can achieve my personal goals.  Once June comes along, I look forward to the summer related activities we choose to do.  However, this time of year throws off the balance of what I am able to accomplish.  For example, this was the first year that I missed our town fireworks.  Having a 3-day holiday weekend means more opportunities to be with family and friends. In the midst of planning the weekend, I began to realize that some of my weekly goals would be putting a crunch on my social time.  At the end of the weekend, I realized that I had to prioritize which activities had to be accomplished; as much as I enjoy the fireworks, they were not the priority.

 

As my girls were growing up, I have watched as each year they looked forward to their summer vacation from school.  Even though I do not have the same type of vacation any more, the way we look towards the summertime has not changed.  There is still some measure of vacation time in the pull of the warm weather, swimming in a pool and being outdoors that never seems to leave us.  We cannot stick our head in the ground and put our obligations on hold for 3 months (as much as we would like to), but we need to be diligent on how we spend our time.  I hope that everyone has a great summer, maximizing your enjoyment of this season with your goals!