“Why work today? I'll take Tuesday on, just like I took Monday off. That's just the kind of dedicated worker I am.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

Ah, the guilty pleasure of a day off. This isn’t a Saturday or a Sunday or even a vacation day. It is a work day and I have taken the day off. It feels rather like playing hooky from school; a niggling finger of guilt tickles at my conscience, making this stolen day just that much sweeter. I feel a tingle of excitement. What wonders will this day hold, suddenly free and stretching enticingly before me?

I am reminded of a time in my twenties (I won’t tell you how very long ago that was ;) when my good friend and apartment mate, and I, worked together at an institution for the severely mentally disabled. In addition to their mental challenges the women we worked with had behavioral and physical disabilities which had developed over a lifetime of institutional living. I remember appreciating those few with whom I was able to converse, for most had no language, and resorted to screams, bites, hitting and slapping each other and us to convey their emotions. The women spent their lives together in large wards. It was our job, young, naïve and fresh out of college, to attempt to bring order into their lives and try to give them a semblance of safety and education. My friend and I came home each night from work to our shared apartment exhausted.

So, every once in a while, we would take the day off.

Getting up in the morning, ready to drag ourselves off to work, we’d look at each other and say, “Let’s take the day off!” We couldn’t do it very often; staff coverage had to be found so the women would be cared for. The scarcity made the stolen days that much more delicious. Suddenly, feeling like kids on a snowday from school, we were free.

We lounged about in our bathrobes, savoring our coffee, my friend puttering about in the kitchen, me sitting at the kitchen table, watching the birds out the window and writing in my journal. Then we would leisurely get ready and go clothes shopping.

Always, we went shopping, stopping for lunch at a sandwich spot along the way. I don’t know why shopping was such a treat. Perhaps it was the frivolity of unplanned spending when we should have been at work earning money. Perhaps it was the freedom of being able to wander about, responsible for no one but ourselves, having no schedule but that which our rumbling stomachs and tired feet set, as we looked at all the pretty things we might buy. Always it was the guilty pleasure of knowing we should have been at work but instead doing whatever we wanted.

Memories of those enticing days echo forward, and every once in a while, I remember that guilty pleasure and steal a day just for myself.

Today, when I should be working on several different writing projects and making calls, when I should be organizing and cleaning the house, today when I should be doing any number of other duties with which my life is filled, today I think, how about a day off? 

“Let go of the idea that life is hard work and see that it is soft. You are just surrendering and allowing.”
-Red Feather
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Why is it that life often just feels like hard work? Why do we make it so? Does life have to be hard work?

We can be grateful for our hard work because it goes hand in hand with a sense of accomplishment. It is that for which we strive not the hard work itself. It is so that we can look back and say, “This is what I did.” It feels good, and in the process we learn valuable spiritual lessons. There is purpose in this path.

It is not the only path however. For it is possible to grow through play. How else do children learn so well and so easily? It is only when learning becomes hard work for them that they bog down and struggle, just like adults.

What’s the difference? The difference is that sense of ‘have to’, ‘should’, ‘must’. The difference is the element of fear around whatever it is not getting done. “If I don’t do this, I won’t get paid. If I don’t do this, I won’t be able to pay my bills. If I don’t do this my house won’t be clean and what will my guests think? If I don’t do this, I’m not a good parent, employee, person.”

There are so many ways that fear can enter into why we choose to do or not do. Yet fear creates that sense of struggle and hard work. In contrast, anything done from love, with love, becomes ease and flow. Either way we learn, we grow. It is just a matter of choosing how we want to go about it.

But how will we ever get anything done if we just do what we want?

The truth is that we do what we want anyway. We just like to complain about it, to ourselves and to others. We want to clean the house because we want to feel good, or we want others to think well of us, or whatever other reason we have. We want to work to pay our bills, because we want to get paid, we want to live in our homes, we want to eat and buy things. We are doing what we want. It just feels like hard work.

Now what would it look like if we flipped the switch, like changing the voltage of our electrical current from 110 to 220? What would it look like if we raised our vibration enough so that we do what we do guided by thoughts of love and appreciation?

Then it would look like this, “I really appreciate this ability I have to earn a living.” “I'm glad I have this vacuum cleaner that makes cleaning the mess on my floor easier.” “I am grateful for the people I love in my life.”  “I so appreciate the blue sky, the wind, the sun on my face.”

The more we can do this, finding something to appreciate about whatever we are doing, whatever circumstances we find ourselves involved in, the more and more we will have to appreciate in our lives. Circumstances around us will change and become more and more pleasing.

Even finding the littlest things to appreciate matters and makes the difference because it is the attitude of appreciation, that love expressed, that will make the difference. We become motivated by love rather than fear. We are expressing love rather than fear into our lives. The Universe will respond by reflecting that love back to us, in small ways and in large. Life will no longer feel like such hard work. A life filled with an attitude of appreciation is a life filled with grace and with flow.