03 Sep Adding things back to the schedule

For years, music was a huge part of my life.  Whether I was playing in our Hawaiian band for LMU luau or jamming on our worship team at church.  Over the last few years, I’ve really lost touch with music… not playing much and not really missing it at all.

Our recent trip to Japan really caused me to rethink some things about life… One of the questions I’ve been asked by family, friends and colleagues is “what do you do for fun?” My answer has most often been: “I work.”  I love working, it’s a lot of fun making videos and taking pictures, and honestly it is a joy to work… but in high school, I skateboarded, boogie boarded, rode my bike, drew, played music and yes made videos.  Seriously though, I think I’ve stripped leisure activities from most of my life.  I’ve been to the beach for work at least 20 times in the last year and only once have I actually gotten in the water.  I’ve been to Japan to document ukulele artists jamming their hearts out and have only recently touched my ukulele after over a year of it sitting in its case.

That is coming to an end.  Like with any habit I want to make stick, I am going to have to force myself to do fun things again.  Whether it’s schedule some beach time to boogie board or snorkel during work hours, or bust out my guitar for thirty minutes just so my strings don’t completely rust over, I need to intentionally schedule in leisure.

Today I felt something really foreign to me… burn out.  Now I’m used to working super hard, for weeks on end just digging and grinding out some amazing work, but today was different.  For the first time, I felt like I didn’t want to work.  I almost didn’t care to work and it terrified me.  I can’t let my love for what I get to do be defeated by my need to mechanically keep doing what I do.  Once creativity becomes robotic, it will lose it’s integrity and appeal for me and I won’t let that happen.  So I think what I need to do is take a serious break.  Not a travel video disguised as a vacation, not some hiking trail to ascend for the gram, but an honest and true disconnection from everything so I can come back refreshed and renewed.