I wake up in my bed, which is square like a box. I reach for the alarm box on the box at my bedside. I sit at the table box to eat breakfast from a box. I leave my box house and, in my neighbourhood, the houses, all look just the same. I hop into my car which resembles a box and drive to my box office.
I sit at my box of a desk, look at a box monitor and type away on the little boxes on my keyboard. My inbox limits my thinking and rules my hours. At the end of the day, I drive home, cook in the box, out of a box, from a box, and watch the big black box TV on the wall. This box fills me with stories from everyone else’s boxes. Our children sit at a box, and within a box, and are taught to be confined to the box (their subject choices at school, their career, the role they will play).
Eventually, some end up in boxes in the ground.
Somehow, we need to break out of these boxes and experience real life. Often! For me, it is not until I reach the beach that I start to loosen the constraints of the box. Everything around me is rounded and softer, and I can breathe in the shapes. The waves are ever changing, curling, rising and falling. The sea draws flowing curves on the sand. The clouds swirl softly against the sky, blending colours toward the horizon. The soft undulating landfall in the distance throws shadows and forms silhouettes. The trees and sea grass grow with abandon. No uniformity. No compromise. As they please. In their own time.
This blog post is an excerpt from the book:
A few breaths in this environment and I can feel content. The sand soft between my toes, the freedom the roaring waves brings, and the way the warm sun feels against my skin.
I am outside the boxes, free from constraints of the daily grind. I have space to just be. There are no sharp edges defined by other thoughts and perceptions.
This is my respite from the world.
“We teach best what we most need to learn.” ― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Something prompted me to pick up the book I wrote on Work-Life Balance. It was timely and this passage on boxes resonated.
The Christmas bustle is over, family and friend gatherings are diminishing, and the “Work New Year” is yet to begin. This is “me” time. A time for reflections, and for setting new direction (see also the blog on “The 5 R Route to Reset before Resolutions“. I love finding quiet places at home or out walking. I can enjoy the birds, the peace and the warm summer (here in NZ) breezes. I make time to read and write or garden or sleep. I can relax into the sun, rather than the watch or phone or laptop for time. Demands are less, commitments are only those I choose to make. I am free from the boxes of society.
This time also allows me to think “outside the box”. I can be creative and dream, or plan and brainstorm. If I don’t prioritise this time, I stagnate, work becomes just a job, the ideas and passion stop flowing.
It reminds me how vital it is to continue to incorporate this “time” into my daily and weekly routines from next week! It reminds me how important it is to return to the strategies and practices of balance I know so well but forget so easily. “We do indeed teach best what we most need to learn.” It reminds me again how essential to my sanity this “Mind Time and Thinking Time is.
In order to “thrive” (my word for 2024) this year, a few simple things I intend to do:
- Block out time so my calendar is not overloaded
- Continue and Rejuvenate my Morning Routine
- Focus on what “Matters Most” to me – a good 3-C Test. For me, this means looking at the things I say yes to – and understanding the impact on what I am saying no to, as a consequence.
- Delegate wherever I possibly can
Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2024, and success in finding your own time and balance.
Love the phrase ,” I can breath in the shapes”, I feel I am doing this in my art, even though I didn’t realise!
Great blog X