It’s ironic that most of us crave a break and yet refuse to take one. It goes without saying that most of us pine for a week off work or away from the kids, vacation-style – those really take some planning and doing. But we refuse to give ourselves the doable, daily vacations – renewing pauses throughout the day.
In the all-or-nothing, Go Big or Go Home culture that surrounds us, many of us find ourselves held hostage to the idea that we should focus on getting substantial quantities of everything and that anything less is a meaningless drop in the bucket with no value added. If we only have 20 minutes to walk on the treadmill instead of go to an hour long workout class, we say “screw it” and do something else that’s a “better” use of the time. If we can’t find a healthy, lite menu choice at the restaurant our friend picked, we call it a day and just get the loaded nachos. If we can’t get a much needed weeklong vacation or an hour for yoga, we just hunker down at work, snack on garbage, and veg in front of the TV at the end of the day. This black-or-white/all-or-nothing thinking is really huge disservice to our well-being and in the go-go-go context of our world the Power of the Pause becomes infinitely more important.
Pausing – the deliberate and mindful decision to refrain from action – is not really in our human nature. Our critter selves are wired to go forward. No squirrel ever had a good winter from pausing in collecting of berries and nuts; no predator ever successfully hunted meat by not pouncing; and no human ever got a promotion at work or their kids’ lunch packed by lounging on the couch.
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