Feelin’ Groovy!!

A few weeks ago, week my constant state of being over committed caught up with me and I fell ill.

My body was telling me to slow down and I fought it with everything I had, but I lost.  The result of what happened was exactly what I needed.

You see, I had an ENTIRE day to myself.  No one at home.  No one at my office door.  No electronic device tempting me to answer it for the next great blog post, tweet, DM or Facebook note.  At first, I didn’t know what to do.  Honestly, I fought an amazing pull to do SOMETHING because that’s what we wired to do. Doing nothing means being lazy, nonchalant or just slacking off.

The reality of this day to myself is that it allowed me to just empty myself out mentally and get reset.  I’ll be honest.  I don’t do this nearly enough.  Like many of my friends, we just keep adding on more and slogging through it because we have an immense capacity (or so we tell ourselves).

When I was better the next day, I was sharp, revived and ready to face things once again.  This time, however, I didn’t do the mad jump into the rush.  I sat back and thought about how the tidal wive of commitments I’ve chosen could very easily come back and jump up to attempt to drown me once again.

So, I thought it was time to get back to what works for me – feelin’ groovy!!

The phenomenal duo of Simon & Garfunkel had many memorable songs, but one of my faves was The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) because the lyrics and the feel from the song give you perspective.  Look at this:

“Slow down, you move too fast.  You got to make the mornin’ last.  Just kickin’ down the cobblestones, Lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy. Ba da da da da da da, feelin’ groovy.”

It may seem naive, or even a waste of time, for folks.  That’s a shame.  I know that when I woke up to head back into work and heard this song, I thought let’s try something renewed today.  So, I was kinder to my family, excited to get to work, and geeked to see my friends and co-workers.  I called some of my friends from the “social media space” just to check in and see how they were doing, etc.

The groove hasn’t left and I hope it doesn’t. As you approach your day, your work in HR and life in general, remember – HOW you approach it makes all the difference in the world.

I need to go kick some cobblestones now . . .