The Little Blue Book

7. TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF Remember to have some ‘down time’ each week, a few hours exclusively for you. Australians, mostly, work too hard and spend too long at work. The average Australian worker gives 5.1 additional hours of unpaid work every week. You are no value to anyone burned-out. So, leave your desk, pack up the file, shut down the forklift, stow the tools, close the office door behind you and go home. Remind yourself that work, however important, is not ‘life’, but a part of life. And while we draw satisfaction and pride from the achievement of work, in utilising our talents and character, a successful life is not so much what we do for a living, but how we live. So, get into the habit of making time for yourself – your time, to clear the head, to free the imagination, to shake off life’s little stresses and to get in touch with the unique person at your core. So, if you once enjoyed ‘fixing things up’, start fixing things again – get an old motorbike and strip it down. Or if you sketched or painted, sketch and paint again. If you once enjoyed time by yourself, get out into the bush and sit by a mountain stream. Or join a men’s shed, or yoga class, or go fishing, or join a dog-training class, or get the band back together (“on a mission from God, ma’am”). And use this time to ‘quieten the mind’, to deal with stress, to relieve the pressures of the working week, to see things in context (we get so used to treating trivial things as important), and to rediscover what is really important in your life. After all, being calm, finding serenity, not only improves our overall state of mind and sense of fulfilment, it makes us happier, eases pain and gives the immune system a boost. RECOGNISING DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND OTHER DISORDERS 120