Righteous Rejuvenation: Embracing Your Time Away from Work

It’s a universal truth: work too much and it starts to wear on you.  When that happens, a little time away may be just what the doctor—or Lighthouse CEO—ordered.

Righteous Rejuvenation: Embracing Your Time Away from Work

I took a couple days off work last week to rejuvenate a bit.
The time away from work helped give me some fresh perspective.

I hope you are well.  I don’t know about you, but I am ready for Spring!  I really enjoy having the four seasons because just when I start getting tired of one, the next comes along.

I took a couple days off work last week to try and rejuvenate a bit.  Like many of you, I had been putting in a few too many hours and it was wearing on me.  I’m glad I did.  I needed the down time to relax and think of things other than software.

Luckily for me, my beautiful wife found an antique door in the basement of her new gift shop, Agnes & Orson, and asked if I could turn it into a table.  That’s a new and different challenge for me.  It’s been a couple of decades since I’ve done much woodworking, so it was quite a stretch.  But with the help of Google, a couple of tools from a neighbor, some Pinterest, a little Craig’s List, a few glasses of wine, and a lot of trips to Home Depot and Lowes, I made it happen.

The time away from work helped give me some fresh perspective.  It allowed me to get creative and in the process, my inner-self got a chance to rebuild a little and re-create.  This project reminded me that I love the process of making or repairing something with my hands.  Whether I am tending to a small garden, sewing on a loose button, repairing a leaky faucet, baking homemade bread, or building an antique table, it fills me with pride.

I think in our ever-increasing digital world, many of us are losing the feeling of pride for creating something tangible.  I encourage all of you to build something or fix something around your home and see how you feel.  Choose something challenging that will take you several hours or even days.  I’d love to see photos and hear your stories.  Did you feel proud, refreshed, and re-created?

Until we talk again, have fun creating!

Jeff Van Fleet
President & CEO
Lighthouse Technologies, Inc.
Software Testing | Quality Assurance Consulting | Oracle EBS Consulting

{ 2 comments… add one }
  • Fakokunde March 14, 2018, 8:34 pm

    Hi, I read the story of how you turned antique door to a table and the inner creativity in me was triggered, good job and your wife engineerd such ingenuity ,so she deserved commendation also.

  • Colin Hammond March 30, 2018, 9:19 am

    Nice handiwork Jeff. Looks like another quality job!

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