Are You Filling Up Your Coffer Or Your Coffin?

In this rapidly developing world, we often find people confusing money for happiness. 9 to 5 jobs turn into 9 to “as long as you can stay” jobs. But what we seem to forget is that to be our most efficient self, we need to take proper care of our health and well-being. It is only then that we would be able to produce work that we would find fit to call our own. It does not apply just to be people who are working professionals, it also applies to school or college students who find themselves under a pile of work every other day. To be fair, it isn’t really anyone’s fault. It has become a trend for this generation to chase money and good jobs as if they are the only things in the world that matter. But the truth of the matter is, money and filled coffers will not mean anything, if you don’t live long enough to be able to reap the benefits of your hard work.

It is not about how much time you spend at work or how many bosses you have impressed, it is about how happy or content you are with the work that you do. But most importantly, it is about giving yourself a break whenever you need it. We tend to ignore the signs that our body shows to indicate that we are tired and that we need to rest. The bigger picture is, we keep deteriorating our body just for a few more bucks.

Vacations are also necessary for us to be able to reconnect with the outside world and the people we communicate with. Spending time with friends and family can help us clear our mind and find a fresh perspective on things. One obvious sign that we display when we need a break is when little things start to irritate us on a monumental scale. Everything that goes wrong makes us feel like the world is conspiring against us. With that energy, we not only manage to ruin our professional relations, but we also happen to lose touch with our personal relations. Taking a break or going on a vacation not only helps us to relieve all that stress we accumulate at work, it also helps us feel happier.

Studies have proven that going on a vacation helps us release hormones that make us feel happy and prevent serious anxiety or depression. Taking a break whenever we’re required to helps us become more productive and efficient. Research has shown that people who take most of their vacation days, actually perform better in the workplace and their personal life, among family and friends. While it is absolutely appropriate and necessary for us to be focused on our work to be able to excel, it is more important for us to focus on our health because ultimately if we don’t have a good health, we might as well be working hard to get ourselves a good hospital bed. Earl Wilson once said, “A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you've been taking”, and rightly so. As simple as it may be sound, it actually has profound meaning, that is of utmost importance for the people living in the 21st century.