“I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says there is no wisdom without leisure.” – William Butler Yeats
CONCEPT
My father taught me that there was nothing more important than hard work! Personally I now know due to some challenging health experiences that recreation and leisure are crucial to a healthy and successful life.
I know that I’m stepping on some toes here however, we really have to ‘get smart’ about this concept of ‘hard-work’. Working hard often is the cause of heart attacks, alcoholism, drug abuse, broken families, insomnia, and poor digestion.
We must use our brains to assist us in working less, spending more time with our families, work on our health, and even how to work better and smarter.
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”― Bill Gates
An example of this is the person who thought of putting a sail on a boat because they wanted to get out of rowing the boat. Whoever hitched a plow to an ox was looking for a way to escape digging. These are smart people! How smart are you?
ATTITUDE
Stop! Take time to smell the roses! You don’t need to work 24/7. Successful individuals like Charles Dickens, Gabriel García Márquez, and Charles Darwin had relaxed schedules where they worked for five hours a day or less.
INSIGHT
Even if you’re working many hours it doesn’t mean that you are productive. Doing too much overloads the brain. Studies show that an overloaded brain hinders performance. It impairs our ability to think creatively, to plan properly, organise ourselves and our team-members, innovate, solve problems, make good decisions.
I believe the above are the very things that cause us to have to work harder because we make more mistakes that slow us down. This results in us having to REDO STUFF due to being ineffective. Ultimately, we blame hard work – when we need to really look elsewhere for our hard work!
ACTION
The work-force gets paid through problem-solving and creativity. You can create a solution in a shorter period of time if you are rested, rejuvenated, and HEALTHY.
“People who can’t find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.” – John Wanamaker
Harvard Medical School discovered that people who were long-term practitioners of relaxation methods had far more “disease-fighting genes” active in comparison to those who practiced no form of relaxation.
Essentially there are two types of leisure or relaxation activities: Active & Passive. Active is doing things that relax you and the passive activities I can do all day long no matter where I am. Focus on finding thoughts that make me FEEL GOOD.
When you consistently FEEL GOOD:
- You’re more charismatic and vibrant
- You are more effective, and more powerful
- Law of Attraction brings you people, situations, events that match your feelings
- You’re clever
- You’re fun
- You are full of vitality
- Your timing is good
- You react to challenges with optimism and belief
WISE GUYS
- “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment. Go some distance away, because then the work appears smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.”
– Leonardo da Vinci - I don’t think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives. – Jack Nicholson
- Organising your leisure effectively is the highest level of civilisation. – Bertrand Russell
