For years our dog has usually awakened before us. And for years, Cathy has always been able to tell Decker to wait “five minutes.” He stops stretching and doing his morning snort routine and circles around and plunks down at our feet to sleep a bit longer. Usually more than five minutes. To him, time is measured differently. All Decker knows is that it isn’t time to get up yet and he can wait “five more minutes.”
We all know time is valuable. So, if you have five minutes here or there, stolen from some other task or appointment or a window between things (an elevator ride, waiting in line for coffee), just what would you do with it?
Would you engage the person next to you in line and exchange a few witty, relaxing lines? Would you check email or make a quick phone call? Or would you take a quiet moment for yourself to reflect and recharge?
There are cases for all of these options: the networker in us says to engage with the person next to us and at least have a laugh or, a stretch here, get a business card and expand the network.
Checking email goes on all the time, but we can never not be connected. Or so it seems.
Lately, I’ve been more inclined to take the latter option: take a moment to reflect and collect myself. As with Decker, he takes those few minutes in the morning with us to breathe deeply, close his eyes and gain a bit more strength for what’s to come. While he is a bit older now and Cathy has to shout in his ear because of his deafness to make sure he hears her, he still responds like he did when he was younger and gives it five more minutes.
While today’s world seems to require us to be on 24/7, we do need to take even five minutes to reflect and recharge. It does an old dog good.
Relentless