Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. ~ Epictetus

Happiness is a day off!

As I’ve gotten more and more into coaching higher education administrators and the concepts around work/life balance I’ve landed on a really important core idea. It’s the idea that you should never work seven days in a row. It’s a simple idea, there is no such thing as only seven days in a row. As soon as you work seven, you’re into the next five day week and now you’re at twelve days in a row. It’s amazing to me how much of a revelation this is for a lot of people. So my advice is for folks to make sure there is one twenty-four hour period a week where you don’t work, no emails, texts, phone calls or work of any kind. It really is a powerful idea and technique for helping prevent burnout.

In our real life however, we’re not always so fortunate. I’m living in one of those periods right now. I’m still dealing with finalizing my mom’s estate, taking care of bills, making notifications, running down insurance policies etc… And that doesn’t include dealing with the house she lived in that I own. As the executor of her estate and person on her bank accounts there’s a lot. I’m grateful for the help my sister has provided, she’s been really great through all of this.

So right now, it may not be a work day but I still have estate related things to do. On top of that I’m looking for a new job, so I also on my “days off” doing job searches, writing cover letters etc…

On top of everything else, we’re living in an insanely tense time in America. Our government has released waves of ICE officers into Minnesota and other places. We’ve deposed the leader of Venezuela, threatening to bomb Iran, resuming war in Gaza, and even invading Greenland who is a NATO ally. Throw on top of that the Epstein file saga and there’s a constant level of noise in the background. For anyone informed and paying attention, there is a constant undercurrent of anxiety. But it’s not like a hum, a constant hum is like white noise, you can filter it out. Instead this is like a cat scratching at the door. You’re doing something and scratch, scratch – damn cat, you think. And that scratching is the madness in the world, nibbling at you throughout the day. The worst part is of course, that at the end of the day, when you finally stop running and take a deep breath -SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH at an insane level.

All of these things make it an incredibly stressful and anxious time for most of us. So it’s hugely important to find that day off, or at least, a block of a few hours each week where you can do something you enjoy, or just be. Work hard to find that time and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane