Stressed Out On Vacation | Who Has Time To Relax?

HopeTracker| America is one of only four nations in the world, without a paid vacation law. Now that the global economy is re-examining the relationship between business, governments and citizens, perhaps more nations will become like us — questioning the ethics of time off.

We hope not, because there’s no evidence that working until you drop dead makes for a higher-quality life, better business or more money in the bank. 

Today’s WSJ takes up the subject of Why Relaxing is Hard Work and why Americans are more stressed out than ever. Culprits aren’t only worry over losing our fishing boats in the Gulf or our jobs in Oregon, although both figure highly on our stress radar. 

Personally, we believe that Americans believe we will ‘beat the death reaper’ is we work every moment. You remember about the devil and idle hands. We Americans define the not universal fear of death. 

“It’s been my experience that an ‘out of office’ response means nothing anymore,” says Edward T. Creagan, a medical oncologist who writes the Mayo Clinic’s stress blog. “We’re driving ourselves wacko with no time to power down.”

Now that’s a concept we like: ‘Powering Down’.  Don’t look for the website. We just tried and got redirected about three times, finally landing on a Ziploc ad page. ‘Consumption’ is America’s middle name. Everybody’s smiling in this ad, but my question is this: Are Ziploc bags a must-have for a better world and clean environment?  This wasn’t my idea of ‘powering down’, following the directives of Dr. Creagan.