I presume many of us are too young to recall that advertising slogan, but the reminder is still important; the reminder that once in a while it is essential that we pause our lives, our thinking, our talking and simply be.
In the book Bear and Butterfly I give some reasons why it might be easier for Bear Energy to take that pause than it is for Butterfly Energy to take the same pause, but all of us do have a tendency to find ourselves immersed in whatever it is we are doing day to day and forget the power of downtime. We know that an automobile engine cannot run at maximum speed for an indefinite period of time without blowing-up; as humans we are very similar to that engine. Without the time to reset ourselves burnout is inevitable. How easy it is to forget or justify our frantic pace. Sometimes it is the mistaken belief that the world simply will not be able to go on without our constant attention. Yet here we are, on a planet that is over four billion years old, so it has been functioning pretty well even when we were not here.
The pause that refreshes does not have to be a month on Maui (but try me!), it can be an afternoon like I just got to spend in Yosemite National Park. It can be an hour with the telephones off, the computer on sleep mode (yes, it is possible) and the TV off.
What I am getting at is this; it is time to remember that it is we who run our lives, it is we who pile on the stress, it is we who choose to do one more thing before rest. We run our lives, our lives do not run us.
