Do you have a moment?

Why is it so difficult to find a moment to stop and relax amid our busy and hectic lives? Even when we set aside time to relax, we usually spend it stressed out.

Let me relax for an hour and schedule a facial. Finish work early. Drive through traffic. Running late. Show up. Try to relax for 40 minutes, as the facialist picks away at your face. She'll put a mask on you and let you just be for 10 minutes. What do you have to do after this?? I have that paper due! Oh, I also need to pick up my prescriptions. Maybe I'll do laundry tonight.

In "Eat, Pray, Love" Elizabeth Gilbert writes about how the New York Times wrote a piece on a team of neurologists who wired up a Tibetan monk for experimental brain-scanning. They wanted to see what would happened to a transcendent mind during moments of enlightenment. In the mind of a normal person, all of our thoughts that whirl around constantly register on a brain scan as yellow and red flashes. The more impassioned, the redder. Mystics across cultures hae described the stilling of the brain during meditation as a blue light. Sure enough, she writes, the Tibetan monk monitored was able to quiet his mind so completely that no red or yellow could be seen. All of his energy was collected into the center of his brain into a small blue light.

It obviously takes years to get to the point where you can silence your thoughts and impulses so much, but, we don't exactly go around trying to reach that point either.

My "relaxing" weekend consisted of plenty of rushing to get ready to be out the door on time, imbibing, getting to bed late, and recovering the following day, only to do it all over again. Great time? yes. Relaxing? not so much.

I propose there to be a set of days from the week, labeled as "pre-week," preferably taking place on Sunday and Monday. Our work schedule should be from Tuesday through Friday. During the weekend of Friday and Saturday, we have our chance to go all out and live out our college selves. During the pre-week, we stay still. Do nothing. No noise. Just be. Collect yourself, to do it all over again.

If any culture is remotely attuned to this sort of thing, it's the Italians, my kind of people. They use the phrase Il bel far niente to convey this emotion... literally, "the beauty of doing nothing" is ingrained in their minds daily... from 3-hr long siestas to, as one mechanic told me in Rome, closing for business on a random Tuesday just "because! it's too hot outside today!"

I'm thinking we should adapt the same concept in America. Let's add a pre-week, maybe people would be less stressed out --> healthier --> happier --> less obsessed with materialism & greed --> end of financial crisis we're in.

Anyone have Pres. Obama's number? I may be onto something...