Summer

I think it's important to get totally out of your element every once in a while. If you are lucky enough to have the kind of work situation where you can leave for a month or more and take a nice low-maintenance break, and still have a job when you get back, I highly recommend it.

France does it. China does it. What is wrong with the US? China has a mandatory vacation for several weeks around their New Year. France takes most of the month of August off. It's brilliant. The soul needs to refuel, rest and rejuvenate in order to be more productive.

Now I'm not talking about slogging through your bucket list, planning 15 bus tours in three weeks from Alabama to Guam... you shouldn't feel like you need a vacation after you've come home from vacation. How about two weeks in cabin where you go fishing every day and you have to read a book because there is no TV. I always hear, "Well I have to be reachable." "I have to take my cell phone and laptop everywhere I go. I'm a very important person!"

Ya know, I hate to say it, but if you spontaneously combusted tomorrow the world would not stop spinning. The office you work in would somehow manage. I give you permission to use that as an excuse next time you want to be unreachable and a boss is giving you a hard time. That is not to say you aren't a major asset but people, I think, overstate their importance. I learned that when we were in Singapore for several months in 2005 and we did not hear the name "George Bush" the entire time we were there. Not once. Back here in the states we think everyone knows all about all our woes and oh what are people thinking... Um... a lot of people are actually too busy with their own issues to really pay much attention to things that don't affect them directly. Singapore does not need the US for anything. It might find us vaguely interesting as one might find a National Enquirer cover introducing "Bat Boy - Baby Half Boy and Half Bat!" But that's about it.

So do yourself a favor. Carve out some time for yourself and your family this summer. Get away from it all. As important as you are, the world really will wait a week or two for you to get back.

It really will.