Unplugged
Several years ago Doyle McManus wrote an editorial in the LA Times called “Vacation Unplugged”. His meaning was clear and welcome: during vacation times, unplug the machines that connects us to our work responsibilities. His words resonated with me at the time and they still do. He said, “A vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive.” I sincerely hope that his vacations continue to be “unplugged” so that he can glean the most benefit from time off.
“Hamlet’s Blackberry” written by William Powers is a short book that taught me the wonder of taking just one day off from our devices each week. It is an almost impossible discipline, nevertheless, an important concept that needs to be understood: “to connect properly, we need to know how to disconnect.” A sense of freedom from cyberspace gives us the opportunity to engage in free wheeling ideas. One day from email, the web and the telephone, enables me to find awesome peace, quiet and relaxation that these wonderful means of communication do not always encourage.
As Doyle noted it is not easy, but it is tremendously unburdening. I found that I resented anything that called itself an emergency while I was working, writing weekly for the North County Times. I tried to regularly take Saturday off because my deadline was Thursday. Researching the Internet is wonderfully satisfying; remember when going to the library was the same? When one is committed to research for work it is true that an occasional vacation, occasionally relinquishing the responsibility is often urgent. Once we have learned to unplug we can work to increase fulfillment and joy in our work. When I deliberately unplug, I feel like I have given myself a gift of freedom. Little did we understand this back in the days when that freedom came easily, we were not addicted to machines and a vacation meant a day at the beach. Today is also means unplug and let the brain search and find ideas and plans without electronic aid.