by Kacey Stapleton

Created on: August 24, 2010   Last Updated: November 13, 2010

Freedom is a wonderful word.  Even as you walk your newly acquired cardboard box containing all those items you once decorated your tiny cubicle with you know freedom is at hand.  All the plans you deferred and simple pleasures you forsook for your job are now yours.  This is a walk of liberation. 

True, this is a good time to economize and a bad time to take a long desired trip to Disneyland, but the real joys of life are now your own. If during the normal grind of a workweek you ever looked out the wind and thought, “I wish I could…” this is the time to fill in those blanks in your life. 

Even as you search for a job, the breaks you take are as long you would like.  Hit the snooze button.  Hit it again.  Snuggle down under the covers.  Think of your remaining co-workers sleepy eyed progress to their desks right about now.  Then think of them trying to find the files or information they also relied on you for and allow yourself the pleasure of a giggle.  No one will know.

How many times has a rainy day made you wished you could curl up in a chair and read a good mystery? Instead, you drove through the wet streets hunched forward, fingers tight on the wheel trying to see the traffic as the downpour overpowered your windshield wipers. You fought for a space as close as possible only to have your umbrella give up the ghost and turn inside out several dozens steps from the front door. The next time the storm clouds start to build put the teapot on to boil and find that Nora Roberts novel you never finished.  Listen to the gentle sound of the rain you don’t have to drive around in and enjoy.    

You also have the time to prepare for the next job in a way you never could while on the job.  Read up all the changes in your industry, and get informed on the latest information.  See if you can find some training classes within your budget.  The kind of industry training your supervisor somehow never scheduled for you, but managed to found time to take himself.  Those training classes could be your ticket back to the daily grind, but you can still enjoy them. 

Instead of dashing around you can take your time.  Shop at the grocery store for healthy food instead of the frantic stop at the window of the nearest fast food place.  Take as much time as you want shopping for real bargains on clothes.  Shop places you never had time for before like vintage clothing shops. Go to the mall and make as many trips to the changing room as you wish then only buy the scarf or tie if you really want it.  You have time to be choosy. 

Time is still a luxury even if you didn’t necessarily ask for it. The next time you run into your former co-workers you’ll be easy to spot.  You’ll be the healthy, relaxed one.  

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