Break

There was no newsletter last Monday. I was on a break. On purpose I didn't announce it because really, I thought, what point would that serve beyond letting anyone not on a break feel bad because they were still at work. But, it gave me time to think.

I read a lot (reducing the stack of digital books awaiting to be read by about 13%). I thought a lot (because reading and solitude do that to a person). I exercised a lot (coz, holidays.) And, I caught up with the world sporadically (because despite Elon's assurances a Starlink satellite internet connection in super-unreliable). I did no work and felt all the better for it and since I've come back I feel like I did back in 2015 (you know, those halcyon days when the pandemic had yet to happen and the geopolitical situation globally actually appeared to be boring).

Which got me thinking about the power of a break. Whether it's a holiday where you really leave your work behind or time at work where, like Google's 20% project , you're encouraged to pursue what interests you, time off from our reality allows our brain and body to heal and experience the world differently.

The way we experience the world is important because every idea we have comes from those experiences and the manner in which we process them. Improperly or hurriedly processed experiences lose much of their power and nearly all their value. It is the value of an experience that changes us. We need to be able to sense (and even calculate) that value in order for the experience to leave its mark.

You know where all this is heading: Life and work. Both are made up of experiences joined together by transitions. If those experiences are not fully (or even truly) experienced then neither the life we lead nor the work we do amounts to much. And truly we want to make our lives matter and our work count.