Take Care of Yourself

There is a sort of Pseudo-Christian idea which says that it’s selfish to ever focus on yourself. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need to spend time on yourself regularly, “recharging your batteries”, if you expect to have the resources to care for others. A life centred on the other people is the only happy life, but you need time to “refuel” in order to live such a life.      

   Parents are a perfect example. Raising children is a tremendously rewarding activity, but it’s also hugely challenging and draining activity. You need regular times to get away from your children. You need time with your spouse and/or time simply to be alone, to relax, to have some recreational time to yourself. The demands of children are constant, so you need to be disciplined enough to say, “Enough!”

          Parents are not the only ones who need time for themselves. The inclination can be powerful to never get away from your work. For some people work is life and life is work. They forget that no matter how rewarding ones work may be, still, we should work to live, not live to work. You need time away, time to relax, time to simply be.This is true for any kind of work, but especially true for work that is people-oriented.

          If you are in a people-helping profession, you need to stop helping people and spend time on yourself. You can’t help them if you don’t help yourself. Get away. Relax. Stay on top of life; don’t let life get on top of you. You can’t give to others if you have nothing to give.

          This is no esoteric matter. Even the work that you do depends on talking care of yourself. Louis Brandeis, a famous early twentieth-century justice of the Supreme Court, was once criticized for taking time off just before the start of an important trial. “ I need the rest,” Brandeis explains. “ I find that I can do a year’s work in eleven months, but I can’t do it in twelve.”

          Motive is the crux of the matter. Taking time for yourself can and should be an entirely unselfish commitment. You take time away from your family for the sake of your family. You take time to read a book so you’ll have a more interesting person for others and so you’ll have a new idea to share with others. You take time to attend a concert so you’ll be a happier person for others to be around.

          Sometimes people accuse those who pray and meditate as “navel gazing”. Nonsense. You pray and mediate in order to be more at peace and have more personal depth to share with others.