Life Stagnation ‘Til Summer Vacation?

Do you postpone happiness until the weekend or summer vacation? 

Is that when the “whole new you” is going to be let out of the box? 

Or maybe you plan to make up for those regular late nights on the couch, year long poor diet or banished entrepreneurial dreams when you will have “all the time in the world” while on holiday.  The problem of course, is that as most of us have learned the hard way that “all the time in the world” passes cruelly quickly and we find ourselves back where we started, facing our habitual selves for another year.

But this type of postponed happiness is how many of us live for decades and indeed a whole lifetime.  If you are just starting out in your career you may feel this is a bit of an exaggeration for shock value.  Sadly, it’s not.  Our minds are wired to create habits, to keep doing those mundane things the same way for years on end.  It’s a fabulously adaptive design of evolution which allows the brain to save precious glucose for the really novel or mentally taxing work of the day.  Everything else gets put on autopilot. 

Do You Live All Seven Days of the Week?

The weekend ( or two days off in a working week) represents 28.57% of your seven day week.  This means that if you spend your working days ”just getting through” and metaphorically holding your breath until you breathe again at the weekend, then you are inhabiting less than a third of your precious life.  Is this you?

So many of us postpone happiness, new hobbies, new romantic partners, good diet, social connection, book-writing, travel etc until the weekend, until we are married, divorced, promoted, retired and on and on.  We bank on having more time in some ideal future and put so many of our hopes for ourselves on hold.  This is life stagnation.

Through our thirties, many people find a romantic partner, settle down and perhaps start a family.  These are busy years, filled with career and family building.  Whether or not this is your life path, there comes an age, often in our forties, when we look up from the hamster wheel and realise that the years are passing and the goals that we always thought were just over the next hill and almost within our grasp, are still no nearer.  In fact, they begin to feel like childish, idealistic dreams. 

Goals that Are Personally Authentic and Achievable

Fame, wealth and power are the goals that we are told to value by social media and the public arena.  Not all of us are likely to achieve them.  But what about the other goals you have for yourself – the one about learning to speak a foreign language, to play the piano, to have more coffee and catch up’s, to take more exercise, to spend more time with loved ones, to travel more, to be more patient, to be more generous…..

These type of goals are the “Golden Threads” that represent who you really are, what is of worth to you as a unique individual, and which individuate you from anyone else.  They are also the kind of goals that should be woven into the fabric of your week because they will be the most restorative for you personally even if they take your time, effort or even money. 

Stress is not all negative.  Nor do all stressors impact the body in the same way.  Things that are personally meaningful or that can be opted in or out of (escapable) do not negatively impact our biology in the same way as negative stressors that we have no control over.  These are the goals to focus on in order to re-own your whole week.

Of course it is true that we are a bit freer to get some things done during a summer vacation or weekend than we might be during the working week.  But remembering that we are made of mind, body and spirit, are there small but significant tweaks that you can make in each day that move you forward towards one goal in any of these levels? On your busiest days you might choose to work on being more patient, on showing your loved ones the same manners you show your clients or customers, or on stopping at a pre-set time rather than at exhaustion.  Some new habits can even save us time rather than spend it.

Every day is loaded with potential.  That is true for all of us.  Learning to stop postponing happiness until the holidays and to really live all 365 days of the year is how we will fulfil that potential and become our greatest selves.  And that, surely, is what we are here for.