Thursday, July 12, 2018
Today’s thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
A holiday is a permitted – or rather a prescribed – excess, a solemn violation of a prohibition.
— Sigmund Freud
Breaking our own small rules is a luxury that we sometimes forget to indulge. How pleasant it can be to stay in bed late on a Sunday, not get dressed or shaved, to let clutter accumulate. On our days off, we can get a thrill from such “solemn violations” as going to a film in the afternoon, eating an unscheduled treat, jogging twice around the track.
It’s probably important to give ourselves these little extravagances, especially if our usual lives involve a highly organized routine. Just breaking up the day differently – reversing daytime and nighttime activities, for example – can give a special flavor to a day off.
Routine is consoling for many of us. We feel good about ourselves as long as we keep to the schedule, obey the rules. But we need to break some rules to get a different kind of good feeling about ourselves; above all, to know that we can choose to return to our former law-abiding selves. Sometimes we fear that if we step out of line once, we’ll never get our lives together again. We need to know that we can renew ourselves on a holiday.
Giving myself a holiday by breaking my routine can make it stronger – because I choose to resume it.
You are reading from the book:
The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey & Martha Vanceburg. © 1983, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation
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