GOOD MORNING
I was invited to an alumni party at a resort community about 70 miles from my home. Since there would be wine served, I decided to stay overnight at the resort and take the opportunity to play golf the next day. I was fortunate to get a tee time with the Chancellor of the University and a friend. My tee time was around noon so I had all morning to have a leisurely breakfast, walk the grounds and enjoy the beautiful, sunny, clear morning. It's my custom to greet everyone I pass in those circumstances with a smile and a good morning. Usually at resorts, of all places, I get a response in kind. On this morning, the staff was cheerful and friendly, the people who looked like me, with gray hair and a slower step, replied in the same vein but the younger people gave me a cold stare or no response at all. Even some of the people who replied looked mildly unhappy. It made me wonder whether my custom was passe or whether people were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders or whether there was something wrong with me.
Resorts are, of all places, happy and relaxed places. If people can't respond to a friendly greeting at resorts, where can they? Maybe people are so frightened of strangers that they can't say good morning to an older stranger. Maybe people fear that if they appear happy someone will try to punish them. Maybe the pace of modern life is so quick that people don't have time to respond. Or maybe people are so self-absorbed that they don't even hear the greeting.
The pace of modern life requires us to schedule our relaxation time. We have to make appointments with ourselves to have time to ourselves. Resorts, no matter how pleasant, have a regimen of their own: Book tee times, court times, pool times, make it to breakfast at the prescribed time, check in and check out on time, pick up and return a rental car on time, leave for the party on time, don't disturb the people in the neighboring rooms when you come back. Perhaps self-absorption follows from this necessity to schedule, to plan, to make every event we want to be part of. But we do this to ourselves. It is possible to unwind without participating in multiple activities, to enjoy a walk, to sit on a bench and watch the other people, simply to be. We need this sort of time. Without it, we become and remain tense, stretched, frenzied.
It has become trite to say enjoy the day, but that is exactly the message we should think about. Remember that stress is cumulative: It isn't that each day's stresses reach a peak and we go back to zero at the beginning of the next day. Unless we relieve our stresses, we start each day from the previous day's peak. Relieve stress. Relax. Simply be. And do it even when you're not at a resort, do it at work, at school, on the streets and roads. And the next time an older man greets you with a friendly "good morning", respond in kind. Both of you will feel better.
9-20-99
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