Make Time To Be Good To Yourself

Carol’s favorite luxury is a bath. She treats her baths with reverence, surrounding the tub with candles, steaming up the place with exotic potions. Now that her two sons are just about raised she has time to indulge herself.

One particularly stressful day she told a friend she was craving a bath but had already partaken that morning. The wise friend responded, “Carol, where is it written that a woman can’t have more than one bath a day?”

That was all the absolution she needed for a second plunge. Now whenever she has a simple longing momentarily checked by the nagging finger saying “selfish, selfish,” she invokes the no-bath-limit rule.

This is one person’s indulgence. Another’s might be to climb on their big old lawn mower and ride around the field, letting the motor’s drone knock out all detouring thoughts. Screening your calls and taking a book to the front steps with a pitcher of tea is one way to treat yourself. Or trying on shoes for an hour with no intent to buy. Sitting with a 6-year-old in a wading pool. Going to a ball game on a workday afternoon.

Charitable acts you do for yourself are easy to dream up but tough to rationalize. We suffer moral blame when we put ourselves first. How can we snuggle deep in the hammock when the window trim needs painting? Can I enjoy kayaking knowing the refrigerator needs cleaning?

OK, let’s get some work done, barks the inner voice. Time to take care of business, fix the world, do something for others. It is not enough to spend your morning watering the cucumbers and staring into space when you could be making a real contribution.

Maybe that’s why people have dogs, for the excuse to walk outside under the stars and whistle.

Leisure-time experts say Americans have forgotten how to relax and enjoy themselves. If you’re doing nothing you’re sick or slacking. The person with the most nervous tics wins. Being good at multi-tasking is a proud trait.

But have you noticed? Some people are more impressed that you spent your holiday weekend sleeping in and reading old magazines than that you called the office three times.

Lately I’ve been looking for people who know how to treat themselves. The ones who book a monthly massage, eat ice cream when the mood strikes, buy themselves flowers even if no one else is there to see them.

There are relative degrees of indulgence. One woman used to hoard her airline dividends for a free plane ticket back in economy. Now she uses them to upgrade herself into business class so she can stretch her legs. Like the woman in the shampoo commercial, she says, “I’m worth it.”

Treating yourself is a learned behavior and most of us are out of practice. How many people do you know who eat more often at their desk than in the park?

A longtime career woman had to go into therapy to figure out how to be good to herself. Now as soon as she launches a new work project she schedules a day at a spa for the end of it. If the spa’s taken she packs a book and a bottle of wine and goes alone to a motel with an ocean view.

You start to appreciate a person who knows how to reward himself, like Jack, a guy who’ll occasionally slip from his desk in the middle of the afternoon, make some mention of a client appointment and go see a movie. He comes back refreshed and ready to work an extra couple of hours, being an ethical hooky player.

For some people it’s pulling off the road to watch a hawk in flight instead of doing 30 minutes on the stairmaster. Taking a nap before firing up the e-mail.

A stolen moment — with, for and by yourself. No apologies.