Do we really need ‘me time’?
Let me begin with answering the question itself: in my opinion, yes.
In today’s time, an average human being continuously keeps running from pillar to post. We are busy Monday to Friday (or even Saturday and Sunday) trying to meet deadlines and expectations at work. We try to give ourselves the much ‘deserved’ break on Friday night by catching up with our social group, only to mostly feel disappointed by comparing our life against the rest, or merely as a social obligation so as to ensure that we are not forgotten. We try to run our mundane (read: essential) errands at home on Saturday and Sunday, and then try to squeeze some time out for family and other loved ones in between all these multiple chores between Monday to Sunday.
In between all this, we try to read business newspapers/magazines to ensure that we can make intellectual arguments with our peers, cramp up some political information to have heated arguments during those ‘breaks’ at work and try to find some events to attend with our partners to keep the relationship going. To make things worse, we have almost forgotten the idea of ‘evening’. A normal day for us is about morning, lunch-time and night.
But we forget that in the midst of all this lies the pleasure that comes from seeing the sunset from our balcony or the beautiful night sky with twinkling stars. We fail to even notice the sound of birds that sometime hit our window sill or the street dogs that barks during the middle of the night. We hardly get to see the evening (read: the time between sunset and night).
This brings us to the important question- what is this ‘me time’ that I am talking about? To put it simply, it is the time where we do things for ourselves only. Let me give you an example of this. I was in Krabi sometime in 2019, sitting at a beachside café, having my coffee and scribbling some thoughts. Some two hours went by in a blink. Thereafter, the owner of the café came to greet me, introduced himself and told me about his other clubs in Krabi to which I should head out to party. I respectfully denied his invitation; we also had a long chat about how people perceive Krabi, or for that matter the whole of Thailand, as a ‘party place’. It took me good enough time to convince him how I was absolutely satisfied sitting at his café, sipping coffee and writing (being things that I have been wanting to do for really long but have not had the time to do). That is when it really hit me- people generally find it hard to understand the importance of this ‘me time’ and it is the culture of ‘let’s go out and do something’ which is the norm.
We humans have become so tuned to constantly doing something that we have forgotten the feeling of just sometime not doing anything and, for instance, just staring at the stars or sitting or watching an episode of our favourite show, alone or with your loved ones. This whole idea of disconnecting has become alien to us because even when we are not at work or not running errands at home, we are replying to text messages on phone, checking social media and wondering about other people’s life or trying to showcase our life to other people through these social media. But rarely do we sit for an hour to think about where we are in life and where we want to go in life. We don’t appreciate the experience of just walking on the streets, not with an objective of finishing some work, but just for wandering and letting our mind and soul roam free to discover new perspectives about things that we see around.
This ‘me time’ should, however, not be mistaken as ‘loneliness’. The idea and objective behind ‘me time’ is to give yourself the time required for the mental and physical well-being of you. It is about giving your mind enough time to let it wander and explore newer opportunities, think about things that relaxes it and gives it adequate break it requires to function properly at work.
It is also about allowing your mind and body to appreciate small things around it that forms part of our natural ecosystem that we live in — stars, moon, birds, animals, trees, flowers, different smells around us, heat, rains, cold. It is also about reading hundreds of books and poems which just comforts you and gives you joy. It maybe a book about a city or a poem describing various emotions or a blog about life. It maybe an orchestra performance at a theater or just the sound of waves. It may be the sun-tan on the beach or the bone-biting cold on the mountains.
The small things that we do for ourselves and the experience we gain from them defines what we become in life. It is these little things and experiences that couple together to make ‘us’. And it all starts from giving the much required ‘me time’ to oneself.
