A Time Off

Taking a time off from anything is perhaps an instinctive human desire.  It is a curious person who does not like to go on a vacation or simply spend time not having to go through the usual day-to-day grinds. It's dizzying going round and round the same rut.

This is probably the reason why employers are mandated by law to grant their workers a certain number of days-off in a year of work. And it turns out to be a 'win-win' thing. A worker returning to work after a day off generally shows better performance at work.

The weekly one or two days off also give workers a bigger bulk of time for attending to personal concerns. But this is altogether a different matter than the extra days of 'official leave' that employers are required to grant their workforce. In fact, many companies complain of so-called Monday blues, where workers seem to be on low gear at work from the weekend off.

On the other hand, the official-leave days refresh and recharge the worker and often result in better performance for the next couple of days, especially if these are made to connect - a few days at a time - with the weekend day-off. It's easy to understand how a time-off works. Everyone experiences it: After a good night sleep, even the most wornout body wakes up fresh in the morning. Sleep has given the body a time off from the toils of the day.

Even machines need a time off, to cool down and recover a bit from the process of wear-and-tear. If it is not switched off every once in a while, the machine overheats and break down. There are even certain plants that supposedly 'go to sleep' at night. It would seem that taking a time off is a law of nature itself.

On a day when I'm alone, I'd imagine taking a time off. Maybe for a few days or even just half a day. After all, I still haven't touched my allowed 'leave' days this year - and the year is already ending. I don't understand why something always happens whenever I think of taking a leave from work, and so I end up forgoing with the plan. Perhaps I just love work so much, but I doubt it.

But, really, I want to take a time off soon. "All work and no play make Johnny a dull boy." For the time being, I simply treat myself to a few moments now and them of 'going out of myself." I'd choose to think of a person whose ways I abhor and try to imagine how things look from that person's point of view. Oftentimes, I'd end up being less repulsed, even pacified.

There's a certain kind of time-off I've been wishing to take. I know it's possible, but perhaps takes so much preparation and self-discipline and gall. I want to take a time off from being myself!

It would certainly be so enlightening to go - even for just a quick few moments - outside of my own self-centered existence. I want to know how life, the world and the universe feel without self-interests numbing my senses. I know that at one point everyone comes to that, for good - but I want to have a quick peek of it now.

Such a time-off would surely bring me a much better idea of how my little self fits in the grand scale of things. I've only been seeing this single tree and the few other trees around it.  I want to have a view of the whole forest - and to be able to do that, I know I have to take a time off from being this single, insignificant tree. It takes an eagle to see what I want to see.

- POR VIDA Archie Modequillo