Holidays: On the Protected List

We all know the routine.  Get up, get ready for the day, drive to work, work all day/night, drive home, relax for a few hours and go to bed.  Only to get up and repeat the process the next day and the day after.  Pretty soon, without much more to break up our lives, it can become fairly monotonous.  That's why we have holidays throughout the year.  I realize that every holiday is to recognize either an important day in history or honor a specific group in society.  We all know we simply look forward to the day off.

But what about those people who don't have the luxury of a holiday?  Maybe these people work in the service industry (food, emergency, military, etc) to where they have to be at work so you can enjoy your holiday without much stress.  While the Blue Laws of old use to protect at least Sunday for all, these have gone by the wayside, sacrificed for our thirst to always have access to stores and restaurants, regardless of what those workers sacrifice for us.

Maybe the people work multiple jobs and while one might not be open, the other might have them scheduled?  Or they may work nights?  I remember I worked nights at one job into the holiday season and came home on Thanksgiving Day at 7 AM, having worked since 10 PM the previous night.  I have worked several hours into a holiday, whereas most people had gone to bed knowing their holiday had already started.  That year, I understood what someone who worked and lived their life this way all the time goes through.  I woke up around noon that day, in a daze and trying to get into the festivities quickly.

What if you heard that you may not get any holidays at all or very few holidays?  You are given time off to use but may not use it at your complete leisure due to the confines of what you work on.  As our society continues to propel itself further and further into the future, this may become a reality.  We are driven to higher productivity levels which more less time available for ourselves and more hours to log at work.  Our families are already sensing the strain from these pressures and we see this reflected in our divorce rates and the different lifestyles that have been adopted within the confines of a marriage.

You have the power of time in your hands.

How can we fix this?  We need to take time and focus on our families.  When we come home, finish any remaining work you have with expedience and take time to enjoy your family and your life.  This can be as simple as going out to dinner or enjoying a home cooked meal around a table together.  Sitting with your family, cuddled on the couch watching a movie or television.  Remember that our holidays can be taken away, government can change and life can shift dramatically.  But as long as we can cling to our families and all those morals within, that is one thing that cannot be lost, even with the onslaught of death.  Death cannot severe what is eternal.

Passing of Time

The sun is streaming into the windows, peeking its way into my world between the slated blinds.  I hear our little dog, Molly, crying for freedom from her crate and her bed.  I feel my fiance roll out of bed and begin to move within the apartment and start his day.  Meanwhile, I laze about, drifting in and out from the realm of sleep and dreams.

It is mornings like this that I enjoy so much.  I woke finally, after fighting sleep in my eyes, to find my fiance standing at the door, smiling at me.  I got up and made french toast and coffee.  Here we sit, discussing life and the day, our Molly lying lazily between us.  It makes me think about how we measure time.

Before clocks, time was tracked by the rising and falling of the sun.  Sun dials, then, helped keep a little bit of tracking of the hours.  Otherwise, the concept of hours and minutes is one we pressed upon the world.  Is it our need of structure that we impress our world into some intangible constraints?  But we have another way to define time.  That is the difference between the work week and the weekend.

At work this week, my coworker and I were discussing about missing school.  Why would we miss school? Because during school, you always knew there was another day off around the corner (of course, I missed school for the academics as well).  The summer or winter vacation would always be right around the corner, with periodic days off throughout the year.  Now, in the real world, I work everyday with the exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas and can take a week off a year.

But the week too is constructed by man.  Where did we get that there were seven days in the week?  Granted, I figure the answer would be by the tracking of the seasons and also by the history of seasonal celebrations.  It is simply an interesting thing to consider.

The seasons come and go but what remains standard is the love that exists between our friends and family.  Remember that nature can prove to be a source of inspiration and love in our lives.  But if we are in forever a rush, we miss what is the most beautiful in our world.  Stop and smell the roses.  Take time to take a stroll in nature.  Breathe in the air and focus on the freedom it releases.  Nature is at our core.  Try it.  It's a good way to reduce stress in a thing called, "La Vie."

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