Yesterday I received the best gift ever – a day completely off. Free.

Image by m.gifford via Flickr

What’s so special about a day off, you might think, I have like two every week! Or if you’re more like me, you’re thinking Psh! Dude, I get a day off almost every month.

This was different – I had a day off from me.

None of my little rituals. No exercise in the morning. Not a single cup of tea. No jotting down random-ish actions into Daytum. No tweeting. No instagraming. No marking down every bite into myfitnesspal. No time trackers. No email. Nothing.

Even wrote the 750words at almost midnight.

For a whole day I completely threw away every little thing I do day after day that doesn’t bring a rush of oxytocin there and then. Yes, I will continue doing all those things today, no, none of it is particularly useful, yes, they all tickle the nerd inside me.

I took one more step. I didn’t worry about the pile of email I’d return to. The day’s lull in my data, or the delay in stuff I’m working on.

A day like there’s no tomorrow! Carpe Diem is fine and all, but dear god we all take it so seriously. When did we collectively forget to enjoy ourselves? That Carpe Diem wasn’t [just] about working day and night to get the upper hand on your competition …

It felt great and against all expectations, my life is not a barren wasteland today.

I didn’t devolve into a fumbling beast, all my good [and bad] habits are still there. I’m still posting my daily blog. Still tweeting like mad. And still dutifully recording all the useless data about my life. I will even do some work despite Jan 2nd being a public holiday.

If you didn’t do anything even remotely like this yesterday – shame on you! You’re an even bigger nutcase than I am!

Give it a try tomorrow, I dare you.

Related articles

• Carpé Diem 2012 (hopenrecovery.wordpress.com)
• Carpe Diem (stephenhilder.wordpress.com)
• Carpé Diem 2012 (rd2recovery.wordpress.com)
• 2012 Goals (jpshealthylivingblog.wordpress.com)

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