The White Space

The other day, I was reading a special report on "Summer Ease" in U. S. News & World Report (July 10, 2006), and it's quite interesting. According to a "Vacation Deprivation" survey by Harris Interactive for Expedia.com, Americans receive fewer paid vacation days than Europeans (an average of 8.9 days after one year of employment vs. a minimum of 20-25 days in European Union). Not only that, Americans typically leave 4 days of vacation unused -- up from 3 days in last year's survey. (I speculate that this number would be WAY higher if you survey the workers in Asia, but, let's focus on Americans for now) What is this "trend" suggesting? Are Americans joining the Asians in "forgetting how to take time off"???

Even if they do take the vacation, a lot of people aren't "un-plugged" from work. They are still "chained" to their cell phones, PDAs, laptop computers, etc. I once went on a field trip with my daughter's school to NYC, and the mom sitting next to me on the bus kept checking her cell phone & Blackberry. She said she is an assistant in a big company and "they" never leave her alone. I wondered what could be so important & urgent that "they" had to email and call her every two minutes -- on her day off? On the other hand, there are people who wouldn't "unplug" even though they could. They could be surrounded by breath-taking scenery and their loved ones, but they are not totally "there".

And then, there are people who approach vacation with a "competitive spirit".... they are trying SO HARD to CRAM as much FUN as possible, and make every minute COUNT that they exhaust (instead of rest & relax & recharge) themselves at the end of vacation. The owners of SlowTravel.com called it "Zoom Travel", as in "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium", or something like that. You hear that expression all the time: "I need a vacation to recover from this vacation". Sometimes you are physically tired from the travel but emotionally exhilirated, and that's a good feeling. But, I'm talking about the kind of people who are both physically AND emotionally drained at the end of their vacation -- kind of defeat the purpose of going on vacation in the first place, don't you think?

Well, it's August and we're a month away until school begins (at least in Northern Jersey anyway, I know in some states school has probably begun). By this time, your kids are probably done with summer camp. And if they are like most American kids, they'd probably complained to you (more than once) that they are B O R E D !!!!!

The truth is, nowadays a lot of kids (and may I say grown-ups too) are over-stimulated and over-scheduled. They are so used to organized, NON-STOP activities all day long. They fill whatever free time with TV and video games. There's little or no "free time" any more. No time to day dream or engage in creative play, or read a book, or simply sit & watch the clouds, or sunset, or listen to the birds in the backyard..... When they DO have some free time on their hands, they are at a total loss and don't know what to do with themselves.

Think about it, we are "training" them to grow up to become adults who do not know how to unwind and arrange their personal downtime. No wonder we are more and more stressed out with each new generation!!

In traditional Chinese paintbrush paintings, there's always much "white space" (the area on the rice paper canvas that is blank, with nothing painted on). In many cases, the "white space" is larger than the area where the artists actually painted something. The "white space" is considered extremely important, as it balances the entire painting and often conveys a sense of calm & serenity.

I think our life is just like a Chinese painting. In order to have balance and inner peace, you need sufficient "white space". Look at your own life now, how much "white space" do you have? Is your "life painting" overly cluttered and there's no breathing room left? Suppose you are looking at your own "life painting" as a third party, what emotions surface?