happy hour

My friend Jen used to work for this company in Chico, and one day, a week before Christmas, her boss handed each of his employees an envelope with $150 and told them to take the afternoon off to go shopping.  They were to return to work and show each other what they had purchased.  He had one condition:  spend the entire amount on themselves, or whatever money they didn't spend, they would have to return.  My friend bought pajamas.  Very nice ones.  I remember coveting them, and that's when she told me this story.

I always love thinking about this.  Jen said it was really hard.  While she was walking around, she saw so many things she wanted to get for her daughter or for the house or gifts for others.  She finally found something, a little extravagance she never would have induldged in using family funds.  For me the beauty of this isn't the fact that Jen's boss gave her money.  The bigger gift was giving her time out of her day to be a little selfish and think about herself during a time when we are so rushed to do things for others.

Time to think about ourselves is necessary.  It's hard though.  Last week, I told myself that I will take one hour each day to do something for myself that makes me happy.  So far, it hasn't worked out the way I wanted it to.  It's not that I'm not content.  I'm just not following through with my "conscious" happy hour.  But I will.  It's been a while since I've had to think about about something truly and unconditionally for me.  I'm taking baby steps.  Even taking the time to write this makes me happy.  I challenge everyone to try this.  I'm sure some of you already do.