Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What lies behind you and what lies before you are tiny matters when compared to what lies within you.”
You can divide any American office into four separate categories: Those who live in a past they can’t change, people focused on a future they’ll never control, a small group of I’m not paid to care and the total “no” shows at the meeting because free food wasn’t offered.
As we daily design our workday with need to do’s, gotta do’s and should really do’s…taken out of the everyday game is what lies within you. That invisible spirit, kick in your step, reason to believe, a gone numb but still exists memory of putting you before your career.
Oh boy…find the computer mouse, double click, click…get out of this!
With less than two weeks left of your child’s summer where’s your focus? I’m not your daddy so you don’t have to fake a grin followed by a quick spin toward the ideas of what used to be fun...this isn’t about taking an overpriced vacation. That requires a giant mouse and friends, rollercoaster’s and screams, fishing poles with large baited hooks and long, long, long drives with the kids.
Retreat…
Just two days away from the television, cell phone, video game, e-mail and PDA. No CD’s, DVD’s or credit cards. 100% deprivation—a total retreat from the life and style you’ll never catch up to and yet you’re so willing to die trying.
Just like Blackberry a couple chapters back, when Twitter took a dive last week coworkers instantly could see, feel and hear which individuals in the office were completely addicted to modern day communications. I want to be the fly on the wall watching the person attempting to explain to their grandchild that we as a people stopped talking verbally to each other when computers made way for reasons to take up typing with our thumbs.
Wait a second! Slowly we’re turning the final corner of the full circle. Cave men grunted. How many more shapes of type type type will it take to create ug ug?
Every store on the block is brimming with Back to School items at really really cheap prices. Let’s go shopping for pens and pencils, a notebook, scissors, glue stick, poster board, easy to cut up magazines and a non-digital camera. Getting lost in creativity is the greatest retreat anyone can and will experience.
Sure it sounds stupid. So did the thought of telephones one day being held in the palm of your hand while taking a walk through the park.
Seven things will begin to take shape when you toss away for two days anything considered electronic: truth, concern, ideas, desires, hope, reality and dreams. In my first book I wrote about prayer, “I want, I want, I want.” Hardly anybody stops talking to listen. This current method of breathing called life is no different. The only problem is, thanks to banks and lending institutions we don’t have to wait for a higher power to get what we want…we’ve got credit…or at least we did until last November and it’s left some pretty addicted people all messed up in the mind body and soul.
For seventeen years I’ve patiently participated in the rebirth of an inner city forest with a long term goal of one day creating enough naturalness that deer, hawks, owls, rabbits, snakes, turtles and human passerby’s would one day stop and for a single second they’d locate a sip of something so invisible it can never be explained. This past May came the day when it was time to plant roses, not one or two but long, long rows of beautiful naturally grown roses.
Bright, unforgettable and good food. What? Deer and rabbits love roses. Every time I get a fresh set of blossoms in, late into the night they sneak into the yard and pluck it like bucket full of popcorn. I can’t raise my voice. No need to become disgruntled and or race to a big box store searching for chemicals to sprinkle. It’s their forest…I rent space inside mother natures place.
I’ve elected to share my retreat. It aint about me…created 100% without electronics.
Once you decide to set aside all that is cool, wow and ever so sweet along the lines of these so called electronics…take a picture of yourself before the forty eight hours begin. The reflection delivered on the opposite end puts ink inside a poet’s pen. Without a doubt your newly discovered retreat has the ability to put a fork in the middle of your highway of everyday dreams.
Stay-cation, day-cation, a quick trip to the mountains, beach, state park, river or creek…none of it means anything until you take the time to discover you first.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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