When I was a kid, the older dudes liked to tell me, “Work hard, play hard” as a piece of wisdom to live by.
I guess there’s a type of person who isn’t happy unless he is as busy on his time off, as he is at work. Climbing Kilimanjaro, attending Zen retreats in the Berkshires, flying to Rome for the weekend, that kinda thing, all while maintaining a 5 golf handicap and a killer tennis game. Busy. Busy. Busy.
I tried keeping up with that for a while. Meh. When I lived in New York, my favorite weekends involved little more than walking around Manhattan, just looking at the people.
Sometimes I’d just sit down on a park bench or nip into a bar and get drawing one of my “cartoons on the backs of business cards”- what eventually led me to doing what I do now for a living. I guess I always preferred something more intellectual, something more spiritually restorative.
To be fair on the “Play Hard” crowd, there’s a lot to be said for that, if you’ve got the temperament for it.
But the only measure for it, either way, is if it brings you joy. If not, do something else.
In the end, love and joy are all that matter.
