Take Time to Play

This weekend I was talking to my husband who has up and left me...for the week. He's away on business and I'm wallowing in the sudden despair of life as a single working parent of three small children.

So I was chatting on along and I said. "Now that you're out of town I could take this opportunity to redo the kids entire room. Get it all cleaned up. (There was a pause) "Or not. I could just lounge around, get the train tracks out and just play with the kids."

And that's just what I did. It was a delightful morning.

How to Balance Work and Life

Are you like me? Are you constantly feeling pulled between work and life? The other night I was trying to get some work done and my oldest kept interrupting me. When I finally had enough I snapped at her and she started crying. I felt terrible of course and then gave her my undivided attention. She soon felt better and went to bed without any problems. Later that evening I stumbled across Stephen Covey’s blog post. How to Strike a Work and Life Balance. He said “…having a good work/life balance means that your actions and priorities are aligned in a way that is taking care of what is really important to you.” I fell asleep pondering this and woke up with a headache. I definitely wasn’t aligning my actions and priorities. I had to admit I was fractioning my time in too many places and I wasn’t taking care of what was the most important to me- my family.

That next morning, I cornered my husband on his way out the door. He’s honest and always willing to offer constructive feedback. Over a cup of coffee we discussed my priorities. Though I was practicing pediatrics part time I was still “working” more than ever. I had so much on my plate, even my hobbies felt like obligations. That morning he asked me what my goals were. What did I hope to accomplish? With my life? With my time? When I paused to answer questions that I had never asked myself, I knew it was time to scale back and focus on just a few things. I went back to Stephen Covey’s post for inspiration.

Covey hit home again. He said, “To a chronic multi-tasker everything is a task. Soon, the things in life that are really important to them are in the same list as everything else, and the only tasks that get done are the ones that have become urgent, but often aren’t very important.” The problem was that I was achieving just for the sake of achieving. I had a growing list of to dos and even that which was supposed to rejuvenate me felt like an obligation.

I slowed down and thought about what I would regret if I didn’t do. I thought about my life and discarded activities that kept me busy but didn’t contribute to my long range goals. If you commit to asking yourself what is really most important, then the little things that start to distract you- the urgent but not important tasks such as checking email, surfing the internet and blogging daily fall to the wayside. I discarded two of my three blogs, designing my website and slowed down with my parenting column. I kept my writing course and taking photos for fun. I also signed the girls up for soccer and started to volunteer in Gabby’s kindergarten class. I am focusing on organization so I have more time to play such as cooking meals that will give me leftovers for days.

Covey says there are no quick fixes and he’s right. It’s hard to change an achievement mentality. Ever since I was little I had a “goal.” Now I’m grown and I have to ask myself, “Now what is my goal and when do I actually reach it?” I have to ask myself, “How long do I delay gratification?” Do I vacation when I’m retired? When my kids are grown? When I’m no longer around?

I keep telling myself that people are more important than things and experiences are more important than material goods. When I focus on this, it becomes easier to align my work and life. I still worry that I’m not “producing” enough- whatever that means. But in 10 years I’ll look back and know that I went to their soccer games and read to their class. I have to tell myself that THIS is important. This moment. Right here. Right now.

Sheila Cason MD

The Importance of Family Vacations

Well we did it! After months of planning we headed off to Cairns, Australia in search of koalas and kangaroos. It’s been almost two weeks since we’ve been home but I can still smell the ocean air as we sailed our way to Green Island, taste the perfectly crispy fish and chips we ate by the pool nightly and feel the warm wet air as we hiked through the Daintree Rainforest. It took some patience to take a family of five to another country and I surely could have used the money for something that seems more tangible but studies show that this wouldn’t have made us happier.

Leaf Van Boven, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who has studied the topic of happiness and well-being, says that if you really want to be happier you need to stop buying more stuff and start doing more. "An orientation toward life experiences tends to make people happier than an orientation toward pursuing materialistic goods.”

Van Boven explains that this is because experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation. The appeals of purchases soon wither after acquisition but experiences quite literally get better with time. This process of positive reinterpretation means that you get to enjoy your vacation again and again even long after it’s over. I’ve already thought less of Jacob vomiting at the breakfast table and more of the magic butterfly dances and the sleepy koalas.

Another reason you should focus on experiences rather than buying objects is because “experiences are more central to one’s identity”. If you think back on who you are, most likely it’s because of what you’ve experienced and not what you’ve bought. That perfect sweater or cool bracelet didn’t make you who you are today and you certainly won’t remember it when you’re old and gray. We would do best to forgo that impulse to amass more materialistic goods and instead plan on using that money in learning to dive or ride a horse.

Because we’re in Guam and are lucky to have such proximity to different countries and their diverse cultures, we’re taking advantage of it. But, your next family vacation needn’t take you to another country; it can easily be a weekend in the woods camping. And you don’t have to spend a lot of money to fully appreciate the experience. Some of the best moments of our trip were the simplest. I can still see the look on my children’s faces when Jacob ate his first ice cream cone; Brianna held a butterfly and Gabby danced in the water fountain.

Don’t forgo certain life necessities in favor of experiences. We all need to prioritize and focus on what our family needs. But if you’re debating whether to buy a new car or save for that family vacation, go for the family vacation. Experiences will contribute more to you and your child’s happiness than buying the latest car model. Remember that your life is a collection of your experiences not your possessions. For more ideas on how to focus on more fun and less stuff go to the Center for a New American Dream.

Sheila Cason MD

Reference:Van Boven, Leaf To Do or to Have? That is the Question Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003, Vol 85, No 6. 1193-1202

New Year's Resolution: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Every year I make resolutions. Too often though, I have gotten caught up in the day to day grind of everyday life and these resolutions became merely wishes. Last year I wanted to make my life calmer and I’m happy to say that I accomplished this. I’m lucky this occurred at all because my plan was a little sketchy. I did however believe that regardless of what I had going on in my life I could experience calm. This turned out to be imperative in succeeding. – (Moving to a tropical island also helped!)

I’m reading the wildly popular book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and in it Stephen Covey makes observations about human nature and individuals. Most of it is I've heard over the years in one place or another but I find myself still nodding and saying “Mmmm…Hmmm” as if I've never heard them before. The first principle that he talks about is the need to be proactive instead of reactive. He states that being "proactive" means taking responsibility. When you're reactive, you blame other people and circumstances for obstacles or problems. He reminds us that we have the power of free will to choose our response. We can literally choose to create the life we so desire.

I like this empowering philosophy and I need to keep reminding myself of this. In light of this, my New Year’s resolution is to put into practice the principles that Stephen Covey speaks about in his book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. For fun I’ll be checking into his new blog: StephenCovey.com/blog and seeing how applying these principles affect my life. For me, this is a way to actively create the life I want. Resolutions shouldn’t be merely wishes but opportunities. It’s like they say, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.” This year I'm going to be proactive.

Happy New Year!

Sheila Cason, MD

Create Free Time

I had a task today. Besides the other numerous, admittedly more important, daily tasks that I needed to accomplish, I had to finish my book-club book. I’m surprised that it took me until now to finish reading it. I’m generally a fast reader and usually stuffed in the empty pockets of time, is a little “me” and my book. Well at least that’s the way it used to be. Before I was a “Mommy”, “Wife” and “Doctor”, I was a little girl who insisted on reading by the nightlight of her clock radio. It seems that because there wasn’t enough time during daylight hours to get in all that glorious reading, I am willing to exchange sleep for stories.

But as I got older, responsibility slowly crept in. Reading for pleasure slunk out just as slowly, and I never really noticed that they swapped places. One day I just woke up and it was different. My free time was about cleaning, cooking and mothering, and my professional life was about doctoring and writing. Not a lot of reading for fun was going on here! That is until book clubs entered my life! I love a good book club. I’m not talking about the book clubs organized on TV but the real personal get together kind. You know, the “talk about your life and kids and did anyone really read the book?” kind of book clubs! I’m in a new one now, but it’ll have to do magic tricks to beat the last one. We would meet over lunch and there was always a good book and raucous, bawdy laughter with a glass of red wine thrown in to step it up a notch! It saved me.

So in anticipation of book club tonight, I awoke at 4:30am and plotted gleefully how I was to accomplish this task. I told myself it was rude to show up at book club having not read the book – by the way, I’ve done this before and no one seemed to care. Once I said that, I now had an obligation to other people and (imagine this) space opened up and the book got read! Hmmph. I had to create free time. Free time is there, the trick is to find it. It’s there for you too. It may be lurking under the pile of clothing and dirty dishes but it’s there.

In my case I found free time on the way to work. I pulled off the road in an empty parking lot. I only had about 30 minutes but there I sat on a little slab of concrete, the ocean filling my entire view and I read. I leaned back in my seat, opened the door and felt the humid breeze. I pushed from my mind the wash sitting in the washing machine and the busy morning clinic about to commence. I allowed myself that which I would give freely to others: free time, to enjoy. I once again was a little girl, sitting in my pocket of time.

Sheila Cason, MD