Indeed, while everyone tries to go and aim for that Work / Life Balance or, as of late, Work / Life Integration, I am starting to be more and move convinced by the day that there isn’t such a balance nor such integration after all. It’s all about a state of mind, whatever that may well be, whether you are at work, enjoying some great quality time with your loved ones or just simply away on vacation. Eventually, it’s your state of mind, something that no-one can take away from you; not your family and loved ones, not your work, not even your boss. And it’s just too funny that I have finally come to realise about that while I have been on vacation myself for the last few days, which is why you haven’t seen any updates on this blog for nearly two weeks. But I am now back and my state of mind is “back to work, back the social grid!”
Fully re-energised, batteries charged all the way up!, really excited to face, and embrace, the remaining of what’s left for 2011, for sure! In short, ready for plenty more! I must confess that I truly enjoyed though the time that I have been disconnected, unwinding from everything, going back home to visit my family and spending plenty of quality time with them catching up with real life, you know, the one I guess most of us keep neglecting time and time again, because it’s always going to be there. You know, they are always going to be there! Well, really? Who knows… Do you? Do you have that certainty? I surely don’t!
The thing is that this time around I thought about bringing with me my MacBook Air, so that, in between here and there, you know, those idle moments where nothing seems to be happening, I would have an opportunity to play catch up with work as well as do lots of the blogging I have meant to write over here for a long while. Oh dear, life has done it again. Life is wise. Life knows what’s best for you and for those around you. No doubt. Never question it, because by the time you do it, it would be too late!
In the whole time that I spent on vacation, this time around going back home to León, mainland Spain, I hardly managed to be connected to the Social Web. Yes, we all know it already, we are all interconnected, we have always been interconnected. Yet, our physical world, at least, in some parts of the globe that being connected to the Web reliably has got a lot to be desired for! And that’s just what I experienced while being away. After a couple of tries of playing catch up with the Social Web and gaining further frustration for not managing to stay connected, like I am used to, I eventually gave up and stopped trying to get connected. Instead, decided to switch off and enjoy plenty of physical, face to face, social networking with the kind of folks who are already interconnected amongst themselves, and for whom social technologies don’t seem to be playing a key role. At least, the one I thought it would. And I had a total blast throughout all of that time! Goodness! Did that experience change a whole bunch of things for the better?!? It surely did and I am very happy it did! It was also about time it managed to break through and go through that awakening phase that I guess most of us would need to go through every now and then to show us all what really matters. Yes, as usual, the little things!
To describe it all in a single blog post would probably take me ages to do, and perhaps you folks may be able to see it coming along in upcoming blog posts anyway, while I try to cover various different subjects and other interesting readings, as I will try to make a connection between this offline time, what I learned during such time, as well as how it relates to the Social Web, and my overall experiences, because, as usual, it does and big time!
However, in order to share with you some of the beauty and privilege of what I have enjoyed in the last few days, I thought I would go ahead and resume my regular blogging activities with the Inspiring Video of the Week, which, once again, is a rather short, but amazingly inspirational, thought-provoking and mind-boggling TED Talk by Ric Elias. I will embed the YouTube video clip over here that I bumped into before I started my holidays, while I will point you to the original Talk itself, but you will have to watch through the little bit over three minutes to get a glimpse of what this holiday has meant for yours truly. And, most importantly, how I am beginning to understand how that state of mind is playing with us all to really help us focus on the things that really matter: our personal / business relationships with others, whether at work… Or not.
(You would have to agree with me that just the Ted Talk / Video clip on its own would make us all reflect about a thing or two on how we currently view things, and where we should be placing, and focusing on, our *real* priorities, don’t you think? … Yes, it’s good to be back into the usual things of life and work, but with a redefined purpose altogether. Living Social FTW!
Ohhh, and talking about re-difining purposes altogether, take a look into this essential, must-read article put together by my good friend Dave Pollard on “Living Disconnected“. Perhaps one of the best, most fascinating, blog entries you will read this year. Without a single doubt. It will be worth while your time, for sure, with plenty of food for thought for all of us on what’s coming… if we don’t change our inadequate state of mind!)
