VACATION VALUES

            Research clearly demonstrates that an annual vacation significantly cuts risks of most diseases by 20-30 percent. The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial of 12,000 American men revealed that during a 5-year study period those who took the most vacations had 20 percent less risk of dying from any cause than those who took the fewest vacations. A 1999 Dutch study found that overcommittment to work without an annual vacation increased physical and emotional illnesses.

            A study by the World Tourism Organization study showed that vacation time for Americans lags well behind other industrialized countries. The WTO listed the average annual vacation days by country as follows: Italy (42), France (37), Germany (35), Brazil (34), Britain (28), Canada (26), South Korea (25), Japan (25), the United States (13).                         More than one third of Americans fail to use their full vacation times. Of those who do take full time away from their regular jobs much of their vacation time is spent on activities other than rest and relaxation:

Ø    19 percent spend their vacation time on family or personal responsibilities, including illness, funerals, caring for sick children or parents

Ø    Another 13 percent spend vacation time going to school, working at another job, or participating in reserve military service.

Ø    One in five vacationers are contacted about work matters during non-work times

Ø    23 percent of employed adults in the United States report checking work email or voicemail while vacationing           

Causes of THE VACATION VOID

            A vacation-less life may be caused, in part, by cultural factors. Emotional conflicts that contribute to the overwork syndrome may be associated with the following:

Ø    Compensation for feelings of inferiority or insecurity

Ø    Identification with a demanding parental expectations

Ø    Recompense for physical limitations such as poor health or aging

Ø    A solution for prob­lems of aggression and guilt

Ø    A need for approval

Ø    Excessive competitive drive

Ø    An attempt to enhance self-esteem

Ø    The desire to improve social status

Ø    The need for excessive financial gain

Ø    A fascination with the accumulation of material objects

Ø    The inability to refuse the requests of others

Ø    Self-imposed demands for perfection           

PROBLEMS ENGENDERED BY LACK OF VACATION TIME

            A self-induced increased workload causes deterioration in marriage and family life, undermining the main source of non-work related support. Likewise, avoiding vacation time leads to a decline in efficiency and initiative resulting in an increasing spiral of mistakes and complaints from associates and customers. Paradoxically, those people who overwork rather than earning praise for their dedication eventually receive criticism from family, colleagues, and employers.

             Usually those who fail to take regular vacations become unproductive, cynical, negative, rigid, and inflexible. Accompanying poor work performance is the inability to have fun. The harder one works the more difficult it is to relax.

FINDING BALANCE BETWEEN WORK AND VACATION TIME

There are individual differences for the need for vacation time. Some people become bored when they are away from the office too long. Others begin to lose a sense of worth when on extended vacations. Balance is the key to the successful use of vacations. Here are some ideas both for benefiting from vacation time:

Ø    Schedule vacations and keep them.

Ø    Quit work early or take time off when fatigue builds. Sustained effort toward a goal is best balanced with laughter and play.

Ø    Plan an occasional long weekend away from work.

Ø    Returning to work tired after a vacation or time off indi­cates the wrong approach to leisure time.

Ø    Have you ever noticed how people on the tennis court or the golf course shout and act as if they are fighting alli­gators in a swamp? If they aren't having a terrible time, they're certainly making life miserable for everybody around them. Those who enjoy life, play for the fun of play­ing. Paradoxically, when they're playing for the fun, they play better. Play—-free and spontaneous activity—-emphasizes enjoyment not achievement.

o     Emotion, not effort, enhances play. Attitude, not activity, determines whether we work or play.

o     Leisure activity should be fun, not a drain on the emotions.

o     Sports and games should bring more laughs than frowns.

Ø    Every day ask yourself, "Am I having fun yet?"

o      Surround yourself with people who fill you with joy and laughter.

o      Be an inverse paranoid-think the world is out to do you good. Decide to be hopeful and fun loving.

o      Don't take yourself so seriously. Those people who have a cosmic view of life culti­vate a lifestyle that allows them to tolerate outrageous fortune. They laugh at themselves and their situations. They develop a "hang-loose" philosophy of life.

o      Read or listen to humor regularly.

o      Keep a humor scrapbook.

o      Marry someone who thinks everything you say is funny.

o      When a situation becomes stressful, pretend it's all a Candid Camera episode.

o      Practice LOL—it's internal jogging.

o      Remember: He who laughs, lasts. A sense of humor - that goes beyond joke telling ­embraces laughing at oneself and life's absurdities. When we learn to "think funny" our life becomes enriched with friends and fellowship.

o      Play golf. Golf is just like life: Difficult and unfair. Par is 18 laughs a round.

Ø    Cultivate creativity. Creative people see connections between things when others see separation. Creativity requires knowledge, for many cre­ative ideas come from old concepts rearranged in a new way.

o      Break the rules by questioning the reasoning behind them. Alexander untied the Gordian knot by chopping it in half while others had failed for centuries because they followed the rule and tried to untie it.

o      Ask "what if' questions. Einstein conceived the theory of relativity by asking, "What if I could ride a light beam?"

A DAY-BY-DAY VACATION: PREVENTING OVERWORK

            Vacation, a time of rest and freedom from work, can be experienced each and everyday. Duke University psychiatrist, John Rhoads, MD, studied successful, effective, and healthy executives who worked at least sixty hours weekly and compared these individuals with executives who developed burnout from working over sixty hours weekly. The following table summarizes those findings.           

THOSE WHO EXPERENCE WORK SUCCESS	THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE work burnout
Postpone thinking about problems	Ruminate about work problems
Take time off when productivity begins to diminish	Take their computer and cell phone on their vacations to keep-up with work activities
Use exercise, hobbies, and sports to deal with work stress	Use drugs or alcohol to deal with work stress
Enjoy scheduled vacations	Tend to postpone vacations
Cultivate a stable family life	Spend very little time with their family
Maintain friendships	Have a difficult time cultivating friendships
Exercise regularly	Watch television regularly
Have varied interest outside of work	Feel uncomfortable away from work
Can laugh at themselves	Take life and themselves too seriously

 

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

FOOTBALL HELMET ON THE FUNNY FARM FIELD

“I notice you are wearing a football helmet on the mental health unit.”

“It keeps the voices out.”

“Wearing the football helmet keeps you from hearing the voices?”

 “If I don’t wear it, the voices get too loud.”

“Make certain you buckle that chin strap extra tight.”

The Fun Quiz

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

Learning Lessons

“You lost your arm when you were 17-years old?”

 “Yeh. I put it through the window and it cut an artery. Blood everywhere. Mama sure ‘nuff opened the door then.”

 “You were trying to get into the house?”

 “I got mad when I found out my cousin was a lesbian and mama locked me out.”

 “I heard she locked you out because you were smoking crack.”

 “That might have been part of it.”

 “Anyway you were smoking crack, got mad, put your arm through the window, severed your brachial artery, and they had to amputate?”

 “You got it mostly right only you left out the lesbian part.”

 “Let’s see you are 37-years old now and still smoking crack?” 

“I didn’t use none for over a year, but my roommate locked me out of the apartment and I started using again.” 

“Was your roommate a lesbian?”

 “No man. I learned that lesson.”

MOVING ADVANTAGES

The next morning he got up at 5:30 AM and was on the road to his daughter’s in Ft. Mill. South Carolina. From the parking lot of the Inn at Virginia Tech, it was 181 miles. Interstate all the way. No traffic. Made it in two hours and forty minutes. Took his daughter and two grandchildren to eat at Dunkin Donuts on the way to church where his son-in-law and assistant pastor was waiting. After church to lunch at Zapata’s for Mexican food. The bought some inexpensive American Girl Doll accessories (an oxymoron?) over the Internet. Played Wege or something like that. Borrowed shorts and T-shirt from his son-in-law. Bought some inexpensive on-sale tennis shoes. Used his daughter’s extra racket. Played a set of tennis after a long warm-up, and then drove back to Blacksburg arriving at 9:00 PM. To bed early. Needed to be sharp for an interview with the chairman tomorrow. Yes, it would be nice to be closer to the family. 

NEGOTIATIONS

What makes people change? When? Why now? What is a job worth? What's important? Met with the section chief at R. and then the Chairman. Two-hours of negotiation. Will make almost $$$ less than current job, but still in the top __ %at his new job. Took it. Thought of more important things---the advantages of being closer to the kids, a better climate, beautiful country, and a challenging new job. Will be working much harder, making less money, but will be energized by family and new challenges.

LOOKING FOR LAND

At 9 AM, he met with the realtor. Local guy. Had lived there all his life. Showed him a log Condo that he could buy for the interim. Price $175,000. Yes, he could resell it with no problem. Even with all the foreclosures. Sure. There are no foreclosures here. Then he showed him 22 acres on a hill just outside of Radford for $250,000 and the owner would build a road to he house site. He would have to put in a well. Yes, he would find water. It might cost $40,000 to find it but he would find it. Yes, the land perked. He could divide the lot into two-acre particles that he could sell for $125,000 each. No problem. Even in a bad economy. This is good land. You will get 22 acres of land free. Great deal. He dropped him off at the Inn of Virginia Tech around noon. He called his wife and then began to explore the territory by himself. So many choices. Beautiful land. Great climate. Moving is scary.

64 AND STILL INTERVIEWING

Most people are making retirement plans at 64. He was interviewing for a new job. Found it on the Internet after his children had asked one more time that he and his wife move from Texas to North Carolina. This possibility was in Blacksburg, Virginia. Close enough. He had planned to work until 66 and then retire. When the economy went south, his financial security became Antarctic. Besides this job had tremendous possibilities. He worried about his age. How could they choose him? If they didn’t he would be stuck in Texas, getting older, and dying away from his children. His body would have to be flown to North Carolina for burial. That would be expensive. He didn’t feel like he was 64, but they were going to test his stamina—six interviews in the morning, a luncheon with 18, four interviews in the afternoon, and a dinner with eight. He survived with energy to spare. Indeed, he had more energy after all was said and done, than he had in the morning. He was excited. 64 is awfully young.

Traffic Congestion Predicts Presidential Winner

His plane left at 9:50. The airport was 101 miles from his drive way. He counted on his fingers. He had a medical degree, but still counted on his fingers like a second grader---1...2…3. He could leave at 6:30 AM and still get the plane with time to spare. He figured his time of arrival using what he had recently learned: traffic congestion can be eliminated if four out of 100 cars stay home. With gas prices at $4/gallon, he figured that four would stay home. He worried about what he would do when he got to the airport two hours early, but to be on the absolute safe side, he decided (counting on his fingers again) to leave at 6:30 AM and work crosswords when he got to the airport early. 

Evidently, $4/gallon gasoline bothered no one. None of the four stayed home. Traffic was bumper to bumper once he reached the outskirts of Houston. He couldn’t believe the automated traffic congestion sign that told him it would take 56 minutes to get to I-10, only 12 miles away. He should have believed the sign. 56 minutes later, the creeping congestion failed to let up at I-10. Don’t people know that gasoline costs $4/gallon? 

It took him almost three hours to drive 101 miles. He knew then that Obama was going to be elected President of the United States. 

Carilion Clinic

Carilion Health System, now known as Carilion Clinic, is a large, Roanoke, Virginia-based not-for-profit health care organization. Carilion owns and operates eight hospitals in the western part of Virginia. The company also operates primary care clinics, residency and fellowship programs, laboratories, health clubs, an aeromedical program, and sub-specialty medical practices. Carilion originated with Roanoke Memorial Hospital, which is located at the base of Mill Mountain in southwest Roanoke. The hospital eventually expanded into related health care services and the acquisition of other hospitals. Most prominent was the acquisition of the competing Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley in downtown Roanoke. The deal took several years to complete because of anti-trust concerns by the United States Department of Justice that two of the three major hospitals in the Roanoke Valley would now be under the same ownership. In the early 1990s, Roanoke Memorial adopted the name Carilion for its consolidated health care business. Approximately 6,200 of Carilion's 9,600 employees are in the Roanoke Valley, making it the area's leading employer.In addition to traditional hospital-based services, Carilion has established the Carilion Biomedical Institute in Roanoke in association with Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. The Institute is a business incubator designed to introduce advanced medical devices into the marketplace. A related goal is the development of a cluster of such firms in the Roanoke area. One such company is Luna Innovations, which is partially owned by Carilion and has oved its corporate headquarters to the Institute's business park. Carilion's management has warned that trends in the health care sector threaten to undermine the organization's financial position. Carilion has gross revenues of approximately $2 billion per year and ran a $93.6 million surplus in the last fiscal year. In response, Carilion has announced plans for a significant business reorganization which will change its emphasis from running hospitals to hiring more doctors in a larger number of medical specialties, with a primary goal of better coordination of patient care and an emphasis on medical education and research. There are currently no plans to sell its eight hospitals. The plan was developed after visits to the Mayo Clinic and other similar organizations. As part of the reorganization plan, Carilion has renamed itself Carilion Clinic. Some local doctors have expressed concern that their independence could be eliminated and that the scale of the reorganization, if it is not successful, could imperil the organization and the quality of health care in the Roanoke area and have formed the Coalition for Responsible Healthcare to express their concerns.As part of the Carilion Clinic's focus on education and research, Carilion and Virginia Tech recently announced plans to establish a small medical school in Roanoke. Carilion currently operates the Jefferson College of Health Sciences which offers a master of science in nursing and 13 associate and baccalaureate allied healthcare programs.