One minute you’re a twelve-year-old kid and you wake up with a bit of a cold. You could probably go to school. You’re not that sick.
But you’re at school every day and you’re playing a bunch of sports and your grades are fine and you just want a day with nobody bothering you to just chill.
So you convince your parents that your cold is a little worse than it is and they let you stay home and you play Madden ‘94 for ten hours and it’s awesome, a full-on break from everything and everyone with nothing else to do but “get better”. And you do get better. You feel great. Your mind lets everything go and you disappear into your own world for a day and it rules.
Then, one minute later, in the blink of an eye, you’re a dad and your son is now twelve, and he wakes up with a light cold and he asks to stay home and he’s the one with the good grades and the sports every day and you know he could go to school and that if he stays home, he’s probably just going to play Madden for ten hours…
But you smile to yourself knowingly and you let him stay home because…
Well… Because the truth is there’s only so many times in your life and days in your life when doing that is perfectly acceptable. And they don’t happen often, even in childhood, and then one day they never happen at all.
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So you think, what the hell, son… Take a day. Be a little dude. Finish a whole damn season on All-Pro mode. Eat PB&J and potato chips. Don’t leave the couch. Real life can wait, man.
And then you get a little jealous and think, “It’s been like thirty years since I took a day like this.”
Not a vacation or a planned day off for an event or even a day off for golf or a summer Friday to hit the beach..
No. Those are still activities. They require effort and going places and packing and driving and a mental load.
You’re talking about an unscheduled, unplanned, clear your calendar, “I’m going to do nothing today but chill on the couch and I’m not going to feel lazy or guilty about it at all.”
When was the last time you had one of those days?
Seems dumb, right? You have too much to do. Too many errands to run. Too many other things that you’d get done with a free day and you don’t even have that free day.
Of course, that’s a reasonable way to think about it.
Then again, it’s that exact reasoning that leads most men to go decades without an unscheduled day where nobody needs you or bothers you for anything. Not your family. Not your co-workers. Not your friends.
You’re telling me that once or twice a year you can’t take a day like that?
As a grown man?
That with everything you do for yourself (your training, your diet, your hobbies, your job ) and everything you do for your wife and family and your parents and kids…
You’re telling me you can’t take a couple days a year to sit on the couch and veg out and watch the Rocky series in order? Or grab your kid’s PlayStation console and play Madden like you did when you were in 8th grade?
Or something that requires nobody else, isn’t an activity or “self improvement” thing and requires no justification other than “this is what I feel like doing to relax and recharge?”
You haven’t earned that?
I say you have.
I say we all have.
So give yourself a chill day.
I know I’m going to.
We deserve it.
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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