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National Personal Space Day 2024
Today is National Personal Space Day, and I’m profoundly glad that I have plenty of it.
The Benefits Of Personal Space
In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself. ~Laurence Sterne
So, happy Small Business Saturday. I hope you’re giving some love to your local Mom & Pop Shops today and that you didn’t get squished in the shopping throngs of Black Friday.
I am not a commercial warrior. I have never desired the challenge of classic Black Friday shop ’til you drop action. I have no desire to go to crowded malls or riotous department stores in search of deals. I’ll happily pay full retail for the privilege of NOT doing that while having plenty of personal space around me.
I need people to respect my personal bubble…
OFFICIAL Terry Tate Office Linebacker “Sensitivity Training”
I simply function better without all the rush and hubbub.
Fortunately, this is the 21st Century and I can have instant access to colleagues around the country and around the globe.
There’s a lot of talk about forcing people back to work, but the company I work with has found substantial benefits from not having a central hub.
No commute. No need to pay for large amounts of office space. No muss. No fuss. People can collaborate across time zones, state lines or even national borders.
I’m a lot more productive without irrelevancies like wearing a tie, driving an hour or more in inclement weather, being somewhere exactly at 8, trying to get home before dinner is cold.
Give me space and leave me be. That’s how you get productivity out of this cat.
A Day For Elbow Room
National Personal Space Day
It certainly seems like there’s a day for everything at this point, but this is one I can get behind. I’m a big fan of personal space.
I’m not fond of crowded spaces. Never have been. It can’t always be avoided, but if I do subject myself to a packed crowd it’s got to be something special.
All the rest of the time, I love my personal space. I love having four walls and a bit of foliage separating me from the neighbors.
That’s just how I roll. I’m blessed to be able to live out here in the middle of nowhere on my little plot of rented space. It’s just enough and who can ask for more than that?
I Need Space To Get Stuff Done
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil. ~Thomas A. Edison
I need space to function, and I need mental space to create. While my physical needs are generally taken care of, I find that my mind can all too easily get crowded with busy-ness.
That’s when I need to push the walls out and get some mental elbow room.
Some people thrive on chaos, but getting into flow state to go writing requires a certain tranquility and mental space being available to me.
It’s very difficult for me to be creative when I have a lot of busywork crowding my consciousness. Dishes in need of cleaning. Work assignments that are overdue. Eating, grooming, feeding the pets. All these things can put a barrier across the road to creativity.
Fortunately, I’m able to pull out all the stops over this extended holiday weekend. Clearing the decks and getting into a holiday mood are definitely conducive to creativity.
I’ve got some sugar-free Christmas cookie recipes to try out, but they’re not weighing on me. I’ll get to them when I get to them.
I spent some quality time queuing up the episodes that I have for The Lights of Pine Hollow on Wednesday evening. Having done so, I’ve got to knuckle down and write the rest.
That’s all for today. I’m making room to get more of my current Holiday Season Serial Romance done.