Today is am amazing day! The sun is shining brightly, grass is being mowed, and there is a hushed quiet among my neighbors. It is Sunday.
Sunday used to be reserved for people to enjoy a day with family, visiting friends, recreation, or rest. It was a religious observance. I don't do church, but I want my Sundays back. It used to be typical for businesses to close on Sunday, nothing would be open. There wasn't anything good to watch on TV, either. As a child, Sunday was often boring to me. Now that I am older, I can appreciate how important a day of rest is. We live in a 24 hour, 7 day a week culture. It is achievement driven and judged by productivity. The pressure to constantly move forward, constantly appear busy has made us an anxious and depressed society. Psychiatric medications are the number one prescribed medication classification and sleeping medications are a close second. We should not be routinely relying on pharmaceuticals to mitigate our life. There is a better way to reduce anxiety, depression and insomnia. It's called Sunday.
We need to take care of ourselves. I know we quit doing Sundays as a religious observance, and I do believe taking out the oppressive areas of religion is a huge leap forward for our society. However, just because we have rejected the religious oppression we were raised in, does not mean everything about it is wrong. We threw the baby out with the bath water.
Sunday should be a day of rest, rejuvenation, relaxation. It should be the day of the week we set aside for friends and family, circumspection, peace, tranquility or fun. I realize there are essential people who need to work on Sunday, but most of our nation can function without working on Sunday. Of course, this flies in the face of commerce. Can you imagine the effect of closing down all nonessential businesses on Sunday? I already hear the dissent and predictions of financial ruin if we close businesses one day a week. We need to slow down. We need to deal with how stressful and fast paced our lives have become without pharmaceuticals. We need to go back to having Sunday dinner with our family and friends. We need to reconnect with each other.
The digital age has transformed how we communicate and interact with one another. It is now possible to maintain a connection with people who would have normally drifted out of our lives. But the connection is largely a superficial one. If one of these connections displeases us in any form, we simply close the chat box, or go offline for a while. The problem with this type of communication is two fold. First, it creates a self centered attitude when interacting with others. You can close the chat box if someone is not saying things you want to hear. Secondly, it stunts us from developing vital interpersonal relationship skills. Why learn to tolerate another person if we can unplug from them so easily? You can also create a false image of who you are, essentially creating the person you would like to be. We are human. We are flawed. We need to learn to deal with it and accept people exactly as they are.
So today I will not stress myself about anything. I might stay in my pajamas. So what if the neighbors don't like me taking the dog out in PJ's? I will play on the internet, talk on the phone with friends, play with Angel, read a book, take a bubble bath, or look at old pictures. I might sit on my porch blowing bubbles, lay in the grass and watch the clouds, take a walk in the park or have a Twilight Zone marathon. Maybe I will just take time to smell the roses......
Sunday used to be reserved for people to enjoy a day with family, visiting friends, recreation, or rest. It was a religious observance. I don't do church, but I want my Sundays back. It used to be typical for businesses to close on Sunday, nothing would be open. There wasn't anything good to watch on TV, either. As a child, Sunday was often boring to me. Now that I am older, I can appreciate how important a day of rest is. We live in a 24 hour, 7 day a week culture. It is achievement driven and judged by productivity. The pressure to constantly move forward, constantly appear busy has made us an anxious and depressed society. Psychiatric medications are the number one prescribed medication classification and sleeping medications are a close second. We should not be routinely relying on pharmaceuticals to mitigate our life. There is a better way to reduce anxiety, depression and insomnia. It's called Sunday.
We need to take care of ourselves. I know we quit doing Sundays as a religious observance, and I do believe taking out the oppressive areas of religion is a huge leap forward for our society. However, just because we have rejected the religious oppression we were raised in, does not mean everything about it is wrong. We threw the baby out with the bath water.
Sunday should be a day of rest, rejuvenation, relaxation. It should be the day of the week we set aside for friends and family, circumspection, peace, tranquility or fun. I realize there are essential people who need to work on Sunday, but most of our nation can function without working on Sunday. Of course, this flies in the face of commerce. Can you imagine the effect of closing down all nonessential businesses on Sunday? I already hear the dissent and predictions of financial ruin if we close businesses one day a week. We need to slow down. We need to deal with how stressful and fast paced our lives have become without pharmaceuticals. We need to go back to having Sunday dinner with our family and friends. We need to reconnect with each other.
The digital age has transformed how we communicate and interact with one another. It is now possible to maintain a connection with people who would have normally drifted out of our lives. But the connection is largely a superficial one. If one of these connections displeases us in any form, we simply close the chat box, or go offline for a while. The problem with this type of communication is two fold. First, it creates a self centered attitude when interacting with others. You can close the chat box if someone is not saying things you want to hear. Secondly, it stunts us from developing vital interpersonal relationship skills. Why learn to tolerate another person if we can unplug from them so easily? You can also create a false image of who you are, essentially creating the person you would like to be. We are human. We are flawed. We need to learn to deal with it and accept people exactly as they are.
So today I will not stress myself about anything. I might stay in my pajamas. So what if the neighbors don't like me taking the dog out in PJ's? I will play on the internet, talk on the phone with friends, play with Angel, read a book, take a bubble bath, or look at old pictures. I might sit on my porch blowing bubbles, lay in the grass and watch the clouds, take a walk in the park or have a Twilight Zone marathon. Maybe I will just take time to smell the roses......
Ahhhh the good ol' days. I had forgotten about them, thanks for reminding me. Maybe next Sunday I will take a cur from you and stay in my pajamas, or go visit a dear friend or relative I haven't seen in a while.
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