The Guilt of Taking Time Off
I’ve taken a couple of days off recently, a few years ago that would have made me feel guilty. Like many people, I grew up with the idea that work happens between nine and five, Monday to Friday, and that taking time off outside of planned holidays somehow needed to be justified. If you weren’t working, you should at least be doing something productive.
The reality of my work is quite different; some weeks I’m travelling, some weeks I’m delivering workshops or giving talks, and sometimes I’m doing one-to-one client work. When I’m working, I give it my all, so it seems perfectly reasonable that occasionally I should step away, recharge and come back refreshed.
Yet there is still a small part of me that feels as though I should be sitting at my desk because it’s a weekday which got me thinking about how many of us are waiting to live.
The Myth of “One Day”
The other week I was talking to my mum. She worked incredibly hard for decades. Like many people of her generation, she spent years looking forward to retirement, imagining the freedom that would come with it. The chance to slow down, relax and finally enjoy having time to herself.
Now she’s retired and has a great group of friends and plenty going on, but every now and then she finds herself with a day where there’s nothing much planned. The irony isn’t lost on either of us; for years she would have loved a day with no commitments, and now she occasionally has one and doesn’t always know what to do with it!
It made me wonder why we’re so conditioned to postpone things. We work hard now so we can enjoy life later. We save experiences for retirement. We tell ourselves there’ll be more time one day but unfortunately none of us knows what later looks like. We don’t know what our health will be like. We don’t know what circumstances will change. We don’t know who will still be around to share those moments with us.
One of my favourite books, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, explores this idea fantastically. The title comes from the fact that the average human lifespan is roughly four thousand weeks. He highlights how we’re often so focused on preparing for the future that we forget we’re already living the life we were preparing for. There isn’t a point where everything is finished and we can finally begin. This is it. Your ‘to-do’ list will never be done (I love and hate this point in equal measure!).
A Day on the South Downs
I thought about that yesterday while walking part of the South Downs Way.
Four years ago, I took time away from work to walk the trail over three days. During that trip, I stumbled across a beautiful little bookshop in Alfriston called Much Ado Books (definitely worth a visit!) and I picked up a copy of Four Thousand Weeks, I’d not heard of it before but something drew me to it – it’s funny how some books find you at exactly the right moment.
Yesterday, I was back on the same stretch of the South Downs with the same relative visiting from America. This time she has brought her friend and they wanted to see the views around the Seven Sisters, so I put my out-of-office on, turned off my computer and took the day off.
If I’d chosen work instead, I would have missed one of those days that reminds you what life feels like when you’re fully present. What struck me most wasn’t the view itself. I’ve seen the Seven Sisters many times before. It was seeing the view through someone else’s eyes. Watching their reaction, their sense of awe, reminded me not to take familiar places for granted.
We walked for eleven and a half miles and completely lost track of time. We became so absorbed in the day that we didn’t even realise it was lunchtime. There was no checking emails, no glancing at notifications, no wondering what was waiting for me back at my desk. There was just the sound of birds, the sea, conversation and footsteps.
The weather couldn’t quite make up its mind. At times the rain arrived unexpectedly, but instead of spoiling the day it enhanced it. The changing light altered the colours of the cliffs and sky, creating views that felt different to those I’d seen before, the air felt fresh and you can’t beat the smell of rain on a summer day.
It was one of those rare days where you become immersed in the moment without trying.
Life Isn’t Waiting for Retirement
Today, I’m back at work and the difference is that I’m not dragging myself through the day feeling exhausted. I feel refreshed, enthusiastic and motivated – perhaps that’s the lesson.
Living now doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility or taking every Thursday off to wander across the countryside. It means recognising that life isn’t something that starts after the ‘to-do’ list is done or after the next milestone, promotion or even retirement (which is getting further and further away!). The moments that make life meaningful are available now, even if they sometimes require us to challenge old assumptions about what a productive day should look like.
After all, if we’re always waiting for later, we risk missing what’s right in front of us.
If you haven’t read Oliver Burkeman’s book, I highly recommend it, and if you haven’t walked the Seven Sisters, that’s worth it too!