Vacation Time

$415 million total paid vacation days the American Worker forfeited last year, an average of three per worker and a 50% increase from 2003.
328 total paid vacation days George W. Bush has taken (as of Thursday) as president (roughly 20% of his term)
as reported in the Boston Phoenix, 8-12-05

Now, I have been confronting the polarities within me lately, and one of the big dualities I have seen arise over the past 6 or 7 years has been the worker/slacker phenomenon. A significant part of me is a straight work-a-holic, in the mold of both my over-achieving parents who work morning to night, 6 days a week. There is also a strong element in my being that knows that without proper space and time to recharge and pursue the things I love, then I am doomed.

There is a catch to this duality, however. When I have been "in love" with my work, it has felt at times that the work and the nurturing to self are indeed one and the same. This, to me, is the goal of this duality as in most other splits: the movement toward center, toward BALANCE. Matthew Fox wrote an excellent book years ago on the difference between ones work and ones job.

"A job is something we do to get a paycheck and pay our bills. Jobs are legitimate, at times, but work is why we are here in the universe. Work and calling often go together." (The Reinvention of Work : New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time)

When I loved my job, it was because I knew it was also my "work" at the time. But boy, when I began to wake up in the morning and dread going to work, I knew things had changed. I had chosen to create an agency to assist the developmentally disabled which actually was supportive to folks for several years. It was amazing to see how the energy of the organization shifted, as an entity, when my own energy shifted away from that being my "work." It wasn't pretty.



Do you think George W. Bush looks at his presidency as a job or as his work? It has been interesting to watch him deal with Ms. Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier in Iraq, who has set up camp with anti-war protestors in Crawford, Texas, outside W's vacation ranch. Hard to imagine the president of this nation being able to really take a vacation. Ms. Sheehan's group has even paid $15,000 for local cable TV ads this week which will run on W's leisure time tube tinkling... His job will follow him deep into his vacation. (Click on "Vacation Time" for instant documentary video on protest)

However, if it is indeed his WORK and not just his JOB, it would seem to me that this is something one would be more receptive to as it is part of one's path. Like him or not, agree with him or not, I think it is his basic politics of not dealing with those of us who disagree with him and his policies head on that sucks. The fact that Sheehan is sitting outside his ranch in the hot sun every day has become her WORK, her calling. W, by driving by human beings outside his house every day in order to go to million dollar fundraising barbecues and ignore them, seems to be stuck in a JOB he may not be attached to as a calling, anymore.

Just Sit There

Just sit there right now.
Don't do a thing. Just rest.

For your separation from God
Is the hardest work in this world.

Let me bring you trays of food
and something that you like to drink.

You can use my soft words
as a cushion
for your head.
Hafiz