Why Are You Holding On?
I’m back to work after a week’s worth of vacation. I didn’t go anywhere particularly special. I guess the new-fangled term for my particular type of vacation is actually “stay-cation” — I enjoyed a week around the house with my husband, just puttering around, tending to necessary household tasks that have been on the back-burner, watching movies, day-tripping — all simple pleasures. It was wonderful.
One of the challenges I set for myself was to disconnect from the virtual world for the entire week. No email, no facebook, no blogging, nothing. I’ve done this before — but never when I’ve actually been home. It’s one thing to leave your virtual behind when you’re away from home; it’s another thing altogether to be in the space where you usually get connected, and choose to not connect. At first, it felt a little strange, I’ve got to admit it. But after about 36 hours, I barely thought about it. And it was wonderful to not feel attached to “checking in” every hour or so. Very liberating. And it created loads of space for ideas to flow naturally. Which was a great thing.
The drawback, of course, was that I came back to hundreds (literally) of emails this morning! This, of course, meant that I had to devote some time to clearing, purging, prioritizing of emails. And it provided me with the opportunity to notice just how many emails I get that I never actually read. Newsletters, announcements, promotions, updates — you get the point. Which had me ask the question, why am I on this list? Why do I receive these particular emails? Why am I holding on to this, when I never actually read these correspondences?
What I realized, and what I know for sure, is that it behooves everyone (leaders in particular) to check in periodically and purge. Just because you’ve always received a particular correspondence, just because you’ve always been on someone’s mailing list, doesn’t mean that you have to continue to be. If it doesn’t serve in some way — nurturing a relationship, providing valuable information, fostering a connection — it may well be time to be rid of it. It may be time to let go.
Bottom-line: sometimes, it serves really well to take a step back, disconnect, come back and notice what you actually want in your life. The things that are of value — keep those. The things that are just taking up space — ditch those. Sometimes, you’ve got to stop holding on and let go.
