As today is Father's Day, I Skyped my father.  Actually, I Skyped my sister and my father then spoke with me via her Skype.  He isn't quite technologically advanced enough to have a Skype account.  Facebook is his most recent, and very enthusiastic, endeavor.  We'll let him settle with that for a while first.  Anyways, the Skype conversation I had with my father went a little like this:

Me: Happy Father's Day Dad!
Dad:  Thank you!
Me:  Do anything exciting today?
Dad: Worked outside a bit, nothing too exciting.  What did you do this weekend?
Me: I cut a cantaloupe.
Dad: You cut a cantaloupe?  Anything else?
Me: I also went grocery shopping, took out the trash, tried a new dry shampoo, bought a bouquet of flowers for $.99, and put baking soda in my shoes so they wouldn't stink.
Dad:  Really exciting weekend you had...

He's right.  I didn't really have a very exciting weekend.  I didn't see any friends.  I didn't get any work done.  I didn't run any exciting errands, or go site-seeing.  I didn't do much of anything.  But to me, that's the greatest weekend ever.  Call me boring, or lazy, or tell me "what a life!" like my parents often do, but sometimes, I just need to take a break.

I think there's a belief that we hold as a culture, that if you are not doing something, I mean, actually actively moving and doing, then you are somehow "wasting" your time.  That because life is so precious and we have a limited amount of time on earth that the only way to have a "good life" is to fit as much into that life as possible.  To be productive.

It's like when my family goes on vacations.  They're the least vacation-like vacations you could ever imagine.  First of all, usually our "vacations" are to some historic location.  I'm fairly certain we've visited every major historic city from the Mid-Atlantic states north.  Second, when we go on "vacation" every second is booked solid with things to do.  On the one non-historic trip we go on, to Disney World, we still book solid.  The first few times we went we had an itinerary for each day in each park.  So by the end of "vacation," after all of the rushing around to stay on schedule, we were more exhausted than when we started, and everything was a big blur of Mickey Ears and light shows.

Sorry to be a contrarian here, but I object! Here's the thing, if we spend every waking second of our vacations and lives doing we run ourselves so ragged that the doing loses its value.  We stop enjoying what we're doing because we're so consumed with getting things done.  We lose the joy in living because we don't stop to smell the roses.

Sure, my weekend was unproductive and maybe a little lazy, but to me, that's great because when I go back to my hectic week-day life on Monday, I'm going to be ready to jump in feet first, rested.  My mind will be clear and I'll be happy.  I will have enjoyed my lazy weekend, but because of my lazy weekend, I'll also enjoy my hectic week.

Lazy weekends are good.  They allow us to slow down, think, recharge.  Don't be ashamed of your lazy weekends because lazy weekends, they're actually the secret to happiness.

Keep on thinking,
Josie