On the Perils of Relaxation

Posted bycbonsig 72,197 Comments on On the Perils of Relaxation

YellowstoneRelaxation can be dangerous.  I avoided it completely from September 2007 through the end of 2008. In those fifteen months, my wife and I both left years of corporate servitude behind, started consulting and freelance businesses, and I joined with some former colleagues to re-startup a divested division of my former company. Our toddler son had the only stable gig in our family, working the nine-to-five daycare shift. I’m glad to say that my time was his on weekday evenings before bedtime, and all weekend between naps (his and/or mine), and for this I have no regrets. He’s way cool. But the balance of all other waking hours melted into work. Usually this was the fun and engaging type of work, but it wouldn’t ever be confused with relaxation. When I got away from it for a few days here and there, it would stay on my mind; the gears were always turning; the laptop, iPhone, or VPN never far from reach. Until this week.

YellowstoneWe packed up our operation and headed for Florida to hang out with my parents for the week between Christmas and the New Year. Great weather, beach, pool, grandma and grandpa, and all that good stuff. Everything was rosy. Then I got an idea: let’s cash in a babysitting coupon, so my wife and I could escape for a micro-vacation — like grown-ups! I booked the Ritz up the road in Sarasota, dinner at a great restaurant in town, spa and massages, the works. It was so very excellent. By the time our 24 hour escape had concluded, I felt something I don’t recall experiencing for years: complete and total relaxation. The sound of gears not turning. Mental energy dissipated. Worries forgotten. Brain idle.

Yellowstone Mammoth TerracesThen, in an instant, this state of placid harmony was shattered. And I blame the blogosphere. Because it was about at that moment that I came across a BoingBoing post about some 250 earthquakes at Yellowstone in the last few days. Not long thereafter, a similar post appeared on Slashdot. Thus both of my trustworthy sources for important information about the world had independently confirmed that a super-volcanic apocalypse was imminent. It should be noted that I didn’t actually read either of the posts or any of the details; just the headlines. And I vaguely recall having seen a Discovery Channel special about the Yellowstone caldera blowing out half of North America, plunging the Earth into a volcanic winter, and exterminating mankind (or something like that). But I became increasingly paralyzed with anxiety about the untimely arrival of the end of days. Suddenly, fundamentalist terrorism, the threat of nuclear conflict on the Asian subcontinent, and various client deadlines seemed like rather trivial matters.

I had to explain my anxiety to my wife, who promised to stock up on canned goods and large bags of rice, just in case. And after pondering my suddenly emergent state of mental instability, the root cause hit me like a chunk of boiling magma: I was relaxed. Nature is completely intolerant of a vacuum, so the Volcanic Apocalypse rushed in to fill the void.

I’ve been working on purging this virus, with the help of some Wii Bowling, reading, and music. The gears are going to have to start turning again by Monday, so I think I should be safe for a while. But I’m hoping the present blog provides another outlet to diversify my mental energy in the months to come. If it gets quiet for too long, I’ve probably either reverted to my old ways, or perhaps we’re all just buried under several feet of ash.

72,197 replies on “On the Perils of Relaxation”

  5. Hello there I am so thrilled I found your blog, I really found you by accident, while I was searching on Digg for something else, Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to say many thanks for a remarkable post and a all
    round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read it all at the moment but I
    have book-marked it and also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to
    read much more, Please do keep up the great job.

  12. Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles?
    I mean, what you say is fundamental and all. But imagine if you added some great images or videos to give your posts more, “pop”!
    Your content is excellent but with images and clips,
    this site could certainly be one of the greatest in its field.
    Amazing blog!

  14. My developer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
    I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
    But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using
    WordPress on numerous websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
    I have heard good things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress content into it?

    Any kind of help would be really appreciated!

  16. I wanted to thank you a lot more for this remarkable website you’ve developed here.
    It is truly is stuffed with helpful tips for people who are really interested in this area of interest, specifically this very post.

  18. Tstevens (6),I did that, too, with some older relatives who sent out anti-Obama email forwards, with detailed explanations of how cool and non-partisan Snopes was. So what happens? They started forwading them to just me and asking if they were true. Kind of defeated my original intent, but at least I stopped a couple emails from travelling further than they had already gone.

  19. In Could 2001, Shenzhen ARTWORK jewellery Co. Ltd funding
    of one hundred million RMB noticed the completion of the Shenzhen Jewellery Building.
    This constructing was arrange in Shatouiao Free Commerce Zone, With the south pearl Yantian Port to the east,
    the picturesque Wutong Mountain to the north and facing
    the Dapeng gulf to the south, the constructing is part of Shenzhen’s
    brightest eastern golden seashore.

  20. Other notable sources of sapphire embrace Madagascar,
    Africa, Thailand specifically the Kanchanaburi region and China (though info on Chinese language sapphire is limited) all producing varied colours
    of sapphire.

  23. Hi! I understand this is sort of off-topic but I had to ask.

    Does operating a well-established website
    such as yours require a lot of work? I am completely new to running a blog
    however I do write in my journal daily. I’d like to start
    a blog so I will be able to share my personal
    experience and views online. Please let me know if you have any
    kind of suggestions or tips for new aspiring bloggers.

    Thankyou!

  25. Well, I’m not sure who “you guys” are. Is it people who always voted for Democrats (and Ralph Nader in 2000) and who only voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 2004?Anyway, here are the numbers:- $1 trillion for the Iraq war (your number)- $2.3 trillion unfunded liability for medical and disability benefits promised to civil servants and military personnel who retire (some fraction of which is related to Iraq, but not that much)- $4.6 trillion unfunded Social Security liabilities- $10 trillion national debt- $33.4 trillion unfunded liabilities for MedicareSo how is Iraq bankrupting us relative to the rest of that stuff?

  28. Good day! Would you mind if I share your blog with
    my zynga group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate
    your content. Please let me know. Cheers

  31. どもども！

    ゆきずりのひとでいきなりの書き込みで失礼します。

    最近どうもからだの部分部分の疲れが蓄積して、とか毎日がぐったりな感じでわたしもご他聞にもれずしんどかったですがたまたま見つけた健康食品をつかってからいいかんじになりましたよ。

  33. It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to this brilliant blog!
    I suppose for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.
    I look forward to brand new updates and will share
    this blog with my Facebook group. Chat soon!

  37. なぜ、FX個人投資家の90％は勝てないのか？

    正解は意外に単純です。

    それは、ほとんどの人が似たような行動をとっているからです。

    では、多くの人が取ってしまいがちな間違った行動とは！？

    大きく下記の5つに分類されます。

    ・ダウ理論を無視している。
    ・トレードルールが確立されていない。
    ・検証を怠っている
    ・正しい資金管理をしていない。
    ・本能のままトレードしている。

    勝てない要因は上記のいずれかしかありません。

    なので、これを機に見直して下さい。
    難しい要素は何一つありません。

    全部今から可能な簡単なことばかりです。

    メモを取り、常に見られるところに貼っておくと効果的ですので是非試してみて下さい。
    特にダウ理論については積極的に頭に刷り込んで下さい。

    ダウ理論を制する者が相場を制すると言っても過言ではありません。

    今回説明する内容は全て学習ステップになっています。
    １～５まで順番にクリアしていくことで徐々に負けないようになっていきます。

    はじめから勝てる人はいません。
    まずは出来ることから始めてみることが重要です。
    是非あきらめずに学習し続けて下さい。
    あなたの成功を心よりお祈りしています。

  39. f3Wow! This can be one particular of the most useful blogs We’ve ever arrive across on this subject. Basically Excellent. I am also an expert in this topic therefore I can understand your hard work.

  40. Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles?
    I mean, what you say is fundamental and everything.
    But just imagine if you added some great images or video clips to give your posts more,
    “pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and videos,
    this website could definitely be one of the best in its field.

    Amazing blog!

  44. Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite justification appeared to be
    on the web the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to
    you, I definitely get irked while people think about worries that they just don’t know about.
    You managed to hit the nail upon the top as well as defined out the whole thing without having side effect , people can take a signal.

    Will likely be back to get more. Thanks

  49. Outstanding article, I simply handed this to
    a coworker who had been doing just a little research on that.
    And he actually bought me lunch for the reason that I discovered it
    for him.

  50. I have been surfing online more than 4 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like
    yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all website
    owners and bloggers made good content as you did,
    the net will be much more useful than ever before.

Comments are closed.