Dear Readers: Wishing you all a very happy Labor Day. The expectation of this holiday is to take the day off, put our feet up and enjoy the last stretch of summer.
How many of you are actually able to take the time to reset and rest today?
We say we are going to relax, and then we answer a few emails. We clean the kitchen. We run to the grocery store. We start thinking about everything that needs to happen in September. Before we know it, our day off has turned into another day of checking things off a list.
Maybe this Labor Day, we can try something different.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” There is something wonderfully freeing about that idea. There is no mention of being productive, getting ahead or improving ourselves. It is simply an invitation to step outside and enjoy the world around us. That may be exactly what many of us need.
We spend so much of our lives rushing from one thing to the next. We wake up thinking about what needs to be done. We fall asleep thinking about what we forgot to do. Even when we are sitting still, our minds are often somewhere else.
Nature has a way of interrupting all of that.
Take a walk without worrying about how far you go. Sit outside with your morning coffee and actually taste it. Notice the trees moving in the breeze. Listen to the birds. Watch the clouds. Feel the sun on your face.
These are small things, but small things have a funny way of becoming the moments we remember.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” I love that thought because it reminds us that beauty is not always somewhere far away. We do not need a plane ticket, a perfect vacation or some dramatic change in our lives to feel peaceful.
Sometimes we just need to notice where we already are.
Labor Day, after all, was created to honor work. And maybe one of the best ways to honor our work is to allow ourselves to stop working for a little while.
Rest does not have to be earned by overworking. Emerson wrote, “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” Whether we are watching a garden grow, leaves begin to turn or the light fade at the end of a summer evening, nature never seems to be in a hurry. Maybe we can learn something from her. So, this Labor Day, let a few things wait until tomorrow.
There will always be another email to answer and another errand to run. But there will never be another late-summer afternoon exactly like this one.