Today is my day off.

Now, I left that sentence in a standalone paragraph because I wanted to let you know just how important that statement was. Today is really my day off.

When you work a regular job, you spend your working hours thinking about things that your boss or the person paying you to perform a certain task wants you to get done. And that’s a good thing: especially if you are a surgeon. You want your surgeon in complete focus mode when they are using a very sharp instrument to cut into your body and fix things that have never seen the light of day. You don’t want your surgeon thinking about all the things they could be doing at home right now when they should be focusing on making sure your vasectomy will work as planned.

But, as I previously stated, today is my day off. And I had planned the night before of getting up this morning and getting things done around my little humble abode. Specifically, clean the place. Yet when I woke up this morning, I really had no desire to do anything except pour a cup of coffee, sit in my comfortable chair and contemplate things that make the universe scratch its head.

Things like: Does Bruce Jenner still get Father’s Day presents?

Whatever happened to the other member of Wham!?

And…

Is there anything in my fridge I can have for breakfast that doesn’t require effort on my part to make?

(As you all can see, I am, indeed, a deep thinker)

But what I am getting at is that I think we all need a day to just forget to “Do” and, to paraphrase Yoda, “Do Not.”  Yes, there is a part of me that is telling me that I need to get up and clean my house. Don’t get me wrong, my house is not “Pig-Sty Dirty”, not by a long shot. But it has been a couple of weeks since I dusted, vacuumed or scrubbed down the bathroom. Yet, every work day I am on the go, doing what other people want to be done and I am finding that the times when I do nothing but just chill are becoming few and far between.

Do I feel kind of guilty for not getting off my butt and get to work cleaning? Yeah, a little. But then I realized that I am going to remember the times when I took out time for myself and just curled up with a good book (or write this blog) then I will reminisce about how well I dusted my bookshelves.

We all need time to chill. We all need time to recharge our batteries. Ok, given some of your circumstances, you can’t totally turn off life: Parents have kids to feed. Pet owners have animals to walk. And annoying people still can’t help themselves.

What I am getting at is that if you don’t take time to stop once in a while from the things we do in our daily existence, then we will never graduate to the point where we start to live. Yes, we have responsibilities for work and loved ones that demand our attention, but if we do not see ourselves as being in first position, i.e., taking care of ourselves, then we will not have anything left to give to others when they may need it the most.

So, yeah today I was just this close to being what the world would call “productive” and cleaned my house. But truth be told, doing nothing except spending the day swilling coffee, writing this blog and trying to figure out how Keith Richards is still alive sounds a lot more fun.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled life…already in progress.