Creating Time for “Days
of Delight”
‘To affect the quality of the day;
that is the art of life.”
– Henry David Thoreau
How many of us feel overwhelmed by the sped-up pace of our days?
At times it can feel like we have lost the art of creating leisure
time for ourselves – and actually, to a great extent, we
have! The good news is that we can get it back; it’s not
that complicated, although it may be challenging at first.
Why bother retraining ourselves to have more leisure time? Days
of Delight are as important as anything we might do in the course
of a day or a week. This time given to one’s self is special.
It is time to slow down, to clear out the mind, the body and
the soul, which may have been screaming for attention for months
or even years. An almost miraculous enhancement occurs in the
quality of our entire lives when we truly do what delights us
for a couple of hours a week. Days of Delight are essential to
having a balanced life.
Days of Delight may be the only time in the week that are without
obligation, without guilt, time set aside only for you. There
is a shift that occurs in us when given time to treat ourselves,
to do only what we desire to do in the moment. We get to experience
spaciousness, the void, which can be, after all, a very creative
place. Out of this space, we may emerge cleansed and refreshed,
like after a dip in cool water on a hot day, ready to meet our
next task or challenge. Days of Delight actually can make us more productive
in our work, as we come to our next work day relaxed in body
and mind.
There is a difference between taking guilt-tree time and having
the kind of leisure time we think we “should” have.
To make the most of your time off, here are suggestions for Days
of Delight.
Days of Delight:
- are scheduled into your weekly calendar and treated as a
serious commitment to yourself.
- are only for guilt-free time and activities.
- can include pre-planned activities, such as a trip to the
beach to lie in the sun and read novels, or
- can be all about going with the flow of the day, with what
feel fun to you at this moment – and at the next moment – like
getting the impulse to buy a bag of ripe cherries or go for
a bike ride in the fall foliage.
- Give you uninterrupted time to be with yourself, to stare
at the walls, to process work you’ve been doing, or to
clear out the soul after an overscheduled week. They give you
the time and space to experience life as delightful and free
on your own terms. They can refresh and cleanse you to move
on to the next challenge.
You might well ask: As busy as my life is, what’s so easy
about scheduling even more time? It is not necessarily easy to
break old habit patterns of over-commitment, overdoing, and ignoring
the needs of one’s “self.” But it is a simple
process, and over time it becomes easier to replace the old habits
with new, more balanced, fun and fulfilling ones.
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