This summer, I thought I’d finally relax – but doing nothing is the hardest thing |
For many of us, the long summer break makes us dream of the beach.
Me too. Except, in my dream, I’m digging a hole, trying to beat the rising tide. But for every spadeful of sand I manage to dig out, more keeps filling the hole, no matter how fast I keep digging.
I usually wake up in a panic. And then, because I can’t go back to sleep – my mind swirling with all the things I have to remember and all the things I have to do – I just get up, usually around 4am, and start answering emails. Yet it feels as if, for every one I answer, another two appear.
While my job is interesting, it’s demanding. I often work 50 hours a week, sometimes 70. I’ve accrued so much time in lieu I have to take seven weeks off over summer.
I know how lucky I am to have that much time off. When people ask me how I’m doing, I reply “busy! So busy!”
But more and more I don’t want to be busy. I want to be lazy. And yet, despite being exhausted by busy-ness, I just can’t do nothing, no matter how hard I try.
Most of the time, I feel as if I’m just responding to the alerts that constantly bombard me. I’m constantly running from place to place, swerving from emergency to emergency, trying to juggle work and family as I run out of hours in the day, despite working so many of them.
And always struggling to........