Last week I heard a story on the radio about a company called FullContact; this company gives its employees $7500, on top of their salary to take a vacation as long as you follow the rules.
No checking work emails, texts, or calls.
No working, period.
You have to actually go on vacation or you don’t get the money.
How radical is that to take time off, travel and not think about or do any work for a week. The management at this company note that all the employees come back rested and more productive so it’s a win-win for everyone involved.
I bring this up after taking the 3 day Fourth of July weekend as my first solo vacation in years. I have taken a few trips over the past s but usually I am with my family. This is the first time in a LONG time that I went out of town for a few days by myself, didn’t have to think about being a mother, a girlfriend, a poet, or anything Simply Poetic related. For the last 3 days I was just Sherri.
Some friends invited me to their home in Queens, NY, near a beach for a weekend of whatever. And boy did I just that, WHATEVER. My bus to Manhattan left at 3:30pm on Thursday and arriving at my final destination around 11pm. I could have driven it faster but I thought I’d use this time to write, or plot my next steps. Yea none of that happened; I drank my wine, listened to music, played games on my phone and slept a little.
In the past I would have felt guilty about that, maybe I should check my work email make sure nothing is popping off, maybe I should post all the invites for my upcoming events, write my proposals for the new venue, or any items on my long list of maybes I should be doing that once I was handed a glass of wine and shot of Hennessy Pure White went completely out of the window.
I relaxed; my only touch with the artist community was sharing the work of the people I get to hear live on a regular basis. I think I should get commission because I sure enough sold a few iTunes downloads … LOL. My only touch with family and home was letting my loved ones know I arrived safely. I only engaged in one business conversation all weekend, everything else I saw could wait until I got home.
This weekend I excelled in the words TOO MUCH, I slept too much, napped too much, ate too much, drank too much and probably got too much sun. Today I’m a better woman for it; I am relaxed, happy and ready to take on the world. So I implore all of us to take some real down time, unplug from the matrix, remember we need experiences to write about and if nothing else, recharge your battery.
That is how I was able to jump so high.. I took the weight of the world off my shoulders.
Simply Yours
