OK, I’ll admit it.  I hit the wall.  A life in Inspirational music is stimulating, intriguing, exciting and yes, even inspiring, and yet there is a point in any endeavor where you just can’t do it 24/7 anymore.  Instead of waking up with energy towards the day, you wake up with a groan and a longing to just go back to sleep.

For me, that’s always a sure sign of wall banging.  I’m definitely a workaholic.  9 hours out of 10 I love my work.  It’s what I’d rather do than anything — especially in the studio where creation is always fascinating and rewarding.  Even that 10^th hour of basic drudgery (which probably comes with any great job) I can normally handle.  Normally.

It’s no longer “normally”.  About two weeks ago I started sleeping less to get in extra hours in order to get more done.  I hadn’t had even a full day of time off for over a year.  I thought to myself, “Well, I love my work; I can do this and get away with it.  Besides, it all needs to get done and it’s on my plate, so I’d just better work those extra hours.

Well, I found out how far I could push myself – and how far I couldn’t.

I hit the wall.

I’ve since been thinking about this wall.  Nobody runs into a wall on purpose.  We hit walls occasionally while driving our cars, while turning corners and even walking.  We hit these walls not because we mean to; nobody does that.  It hurts!  We hit walls because we’re not really watching where we’re going, because we’re not really in the moment of now looking clearly at the future.  If we were, we’d see the wall and stop before we hit it.  Duh.

What is “the wall” in this time-honored expression?  In my case, it’s simply the point at which you can go no further.  It’s a stopping point where you must stop or suffer the consequences.  What are the consequences?  Exhaustion, lack of focus, loss of desire, and often a great dash of frustration thrown in just to spice it all up.

My mom used to say, “Your brother got the brains, but you got the work ethic.”  To me back then, that was not always a compliment, but later in life I did finally see the value of that.  My ex-partner used to say, “Work smart, not hard.”  That’s probably why we two took different roads.  We had different styles.  What I’ve tried to reach for is to work smart and hard.  Well, I’ve come to realize, by hitting the wall, that the smart part is to know thyself and be conscious of my limits.

Oh I know that I’m an unlimited spiritual being, but I have to demonstrate that 24/7 as well and I’ll admit to being still in the learning process on that one.

So what am I doing about all this wall-thumping?  I’ve decided to keep it simple and practical.  I’ve decided to observe the metaphor and learn from it.  I’ve decided to take it a little slower, to be more observant as to where I’m headed, to, even in some cases, back off.  To not attempt to be Superman and set the world on fire, but instead, to experience summer on Planet Earth.  To take walks with the Missus in the evening.  To play my beloved solitaire game sometimes in the middle of the day.  To watch a few more good movies.  To sit more often in stillness.  To call an old friend.  To sleep in in the morning.  To go to bed a little early.  To require less of myself.

At first it weren’t easy.  Those little voices inside kept saying, “What are you doing?  You’re just falling further behind, you fool!”  So I figured out to reschedule my life and attempt to do less.  I found out it was OK to do that.  After all, it’s my life, not yours.  It’s mine to live.

After a couple of weeks, that began to work.  Yesterday morning I got up and found I had nothing to do.  That was a truly amazing moment for me.  For an hour I was lost.  Where was my addiction?  Where was my drug?  Then I realized that the pressure was off.  I actually considered myself a different form of human being.  I was more centered and somehow more myself.  I went to church and then into the studio and worked all day on a project that I started two years ago and never finished.  I had fun.  I worked all day and loved it – for the first time in a long time.

When the Missus got home from Boston I actually stopped working and took an evening walk with her down to the Hudson River Park pier where there was a tango orchestra playing and the city had laid out a dance floor and people were dancing under the stars.  It had rained that Sunday and the oppressive heat had broken and we watched the people tango into the night.  We strolled home together hand in hand, had a light dinner and watched a documentary about the Hubble telescope in space and got a powerful insight as to our importance in the universe.

Today, I’m writing you all to report that I’m on vacation – officially.  I’m learning how to let go.  I’m actually letting go of things I don’t really need.  By vacationing a bit, I find that I can better differentiate between the two – what’s really important and what’s not.

I see no walls in sight – just a clear road forward.

I think I’m in the middle of a healing here – a healing from head-banging, wall-hitting workaholism.  Perhaps we’ve coined a new word here.  At any rate, I’m officially on summer vacation.

Excuse me while I sip my lemonade…