They Keep Going and Going and Going…

Who remembers the commercial from the old Dow Bathroom Cleaner with the animated “scrubbing bubbles?”  I remember this commercial airing all throughout my lifetime. Those talking bubbles commit to the task of “working HARD, so you don’t have to…” That is the last statement we hear as the scrubbing bubbles swirl down the drain. Kind of dark and gloomy, huh? Those bubbles do all of that work, and then they slowly dissolve into foam and water into the sink drain.  They Keep Going and Going and Going…

Have you ever felt like that? We spend a lot of our time working each day putting time into our jobs, family, and even second jobs for many of us, only to feel DRAINED at the end of the day or week.  Even in this era of unemployment, cutbacks, and shortages, statistics show that 85% of Americans work over 50 hours a week.   Think about it? Remember that lunch you skipped so and chose to work at your desk? Do you remember the time you stayed just a few more minutes to get that last thing done? Those minutes turned to an hour or two.  How about this one… I will just go in early today to get some “stuff” done before others get there.

We are all guilty of this every now and then. I know I am. I will put in extra hours the day before just so I can have a few to myself the next day. Well, I never get those hours the next day because I always have something else to do. 

Many times, I think we are like those scrubbing bubbles. We work hard and have our goal in mind to complete.  We work [like they scrub], yet we may not always complete the task as we had planned. It’s okay.  Overwork and no play makes us all a sad case. Yeah, I made that quote up a little, but it’s true. When we do not take time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life, we miss out on so much.

Here is a true story. I met a man while waiting in the doctor’s office. We started chatting about life. He told me he was there because of stress and his inability to slow down. As I listened to this man, he began to cry. He told me how he worked so much over the last five years that he woke up to his oldest daughter graduating this year. I asked him how he could not realize his daughter was graduating, and he said that he had spent the last five years travelling, making deals, working over, and coming home to work more that he lost track of time when she was an 8^th grader. He told me the last thing he remembered was her saying to him was, “Dad, I will be in high school next year.”  This man missed four precious years of his daughter’s life and never even realized it. 

When I left the doctor’s office, I thought to myself that we all can slow down a bit. We all can take a few minutes, put down the laptop, turn off the mobile phone, and spend a few moments with family and friends. When it is all said and done, time waits for no one. The old theory of We work hard… or they keep going and going–can be reality for us. We can wake up one day and realize that the most precious moments of life have slowly swirled away.

Dr. Sunshine68

7/19/13