"We need changes from the duties and the cares of our accustomed everyday life. They are necessary for healthy, normal living. We need occasionally to be away from our friends, our relatives, from the members of our immediate households. Such changes are good for us; they are good for them. We appreciate them better, they us, when we are away from them for a period, or they from us.
We need these changes to get the kinks out of our minds, our nerves, our muscles—the cobwebs off our faces. We need them to whet again the edge of appetite. We need them to invite the mind and the soul to new possibilities and powers. We need them in order to come back with new implements, or with implements redressed, sharpened, for the daily duties.
We need periods of being by ourselves—alone. Sometimes a fortnight or even a week will do wonders for one, unless he or she has drawn too heavily upon the account. The simple custom, moreover, of taking an hour, or even a half hour, alone in the quiet, in the midst of the daily routine of life, would be the source of inestimable gain for countless numbers."
Ralph Waldo Trine- from The book- Thoughts I Met on the Highway- 1919
I stumbled across this book and was completely taken aback by it because it is full of such wisdom and written in 1919!
The quote above is so powerful. We have such crazy lives and we are always on the go. I recently met a woman in one of my training classes who in an exercise said " she just loved being outside- it completed her." When I asked how often that happened she said "never." She was too busy.
There are two reasons why this concept is important: 1) The only way you can tell if you are on track in your life is to (on occasion) make some plans for alone time and space to be alone with your thoughts.2) If you don't get time for recuperation it leads to burn out. ( note: running around like a mad person on vacation isn't necessarily the best recuperation. I see people returning from Disney who look more exhausted than anything else. ) So make time for you. Make time for quiet reflection time. You may see something in the reflection you have never seen. You may discover "new possiblities and powers."