I recently say down with a good friend and we were catching up our lives. I hadn't seen this friend in a couple months, and as you can expect, I had a lot to fill in. After a while, she stopped me and said, When's the last time you took some time for yourself?

That took me aback for a moment, but I replied "um well, I didn't take any time off over spring break. I think the only real break I've had was a week I took off before spring semester started." She just looked at me. "When will you get some time off?" she asked. I looked at her sheepishly, "Um well my second job ends half way through August, but that's a busy time for my other job so um I don't know."

She just looked at me for a second, and not for the first time said, "This is why everything builds up. You never give yourself any free time, no room to breathe. It's constantly one thing to the next. You just told me you're working 2 jobs, taking summer classes, and have a dog to balance. That's a lot. It's no wonder you get so stressed out."

* * *

It's so easy to fall into busyness, isn't it? Our culture is set up to make us busy. If you don't have enough things on your plate, people will think you are lazy. Grad schools won't want you because you haven't proved you are well-rounded and able to handle a full work load.

There is so much pressure to be busy. Being busy has its price. We know this, don't we? This is not a new concept to us. But it's one we are more than ready to ignore. We justify ourselves. I need to take those classes, I need the money from the second job. I can't not do this, it's a great opportunity.

We take a whole bunch of individually good things and smash them together and juggle them all at the same time and call it a day in the life.

Is all that good stuff really still good when we are giving it whatever we might have left from the last thing we were doing? We only have so much energy in a day.

Let's be honest with ourselves, most days we are running on an energy deficit aren't we? I know I do, about four days out of the week at the very least.

So let's remember that the cost of taking time of our busy lives might not be as costly as not taking any time off.

Take time for you, it starts with little things. 30 minutes a day of something you love to do, an hour here or there of calm relaxing quiet time. Go big even, take a day off. Plan a fun day trip.

Take some time to not be busy this week.