8/9/2019 The Power of Unplugging
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The Power of Unplugging
A favorite vacation spot is the Forgotten Coast, a cape wedged
in between
the sea and a bay. The best part of the location is that a
smartphone
connection does not work. All of the incessant demands of
running abusiness, having clients, making social media updates,
keeping up with news
for organizations for whom we serve on boards: poof, gone.
And, when on vacation, no news is the best news of all. y going
fallow from
the routine, energy renews perspective.
The modern etymological connotation of vacation comes from
the !"th
century: #freedom from obligations, leisure, release# $from some
activity or
occupation%, from &ld French vacacion #vacancy, vacant
position# $!"c.%, and
directly from 'atin vacationem $nominative vacatio%
#leisure, freedom,
e(emption, a being free from duty, immunity earned by service,#
noun of
state from past participle stem of vacare #be empty, free, or at
leisure.) The'atin past participle says it best, *be empty, free,
or at leisure.)
&nly by letting the mind empty out its agendas, notions,
biases, mental
models, conceptions, and +(ed +les can new ideas and connections
present
themselves. This is the power of unpluggingand we, as a culture,
may not
be unplugging enough to, as our uddhist friends say, *empty the
bowl) or
see life and work with a *beginner-s mind.)
*ou can say that taking a holiday is a little bit like going
back to childhood,
when the world was full of wonder and everything you saw was
full of things
that you hadn-t e(pected or seen before, you had to calibrate it
in your
brain,) e(plains /ichael /. /erzenich, chief scienti+c o0cer of
1osit 2cience.As people age, less and less attention is paid to
details in the world.
Therefore, keeping a childlike attitude is important it-s
one of the reasons
children learn so much, he adds. *3t-s really important that we
be challenged
about that every so often, that we-re reminded to pay attention,
that we-re
really engaged again,) /erzenich said.
This implies two key points. 4outines can be numbing to
our creativity and
productivity, and maintaining a fresh perspective reminds us
again of the
poet 5ordsworth-s adage *child is the teacher of man.) 3n short
hand,
vacations allow us to become unstuck and see things anew.
&ur advice is to not put o6 vacation. Take little breaks and
practiceawareness e(ercises to see life and work through new eyes
as often as
possible, too. This way we do not sleepwalk through our work and
act like a
zombie with an appetite for long lunch breaks at work.
ou see, by unplugging the brain begins to notice
connections everywhere.
5ithin a few days, 3 was taking notes about pro7ects, tearing
out magazine
articles and highlighting book passages for clients, and
thinking of ways to
