Today on my lunch break, as I left my office building and walked a few blocks north, I mentally composed this blog post. The theme was to be: New York Sucks and I Hate It.
Sounds real uplifting, right? You may be curious as to why I feel this way. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Because though the words of that initial blog post were well arranged, the sentiment true, and though I had planned to seamlessly weave in song lyrics and an appropriate amount of pithiness, I realized that it was not at all in keeping with the intended theme of this Daily December blog project. Namely, drumming up "good things" to focus on instead of the bad. Oops. Day Three. Take Two.
Ok, so today's "good thing" theme will be: Lunch Breaks.
Yes, today I'm focusing on the fact that my current job allows for one-hour lunch breaks. I get to leave the building for one whole hour each day!
The reason this is striking me as a good thing to be mindful of (and thankful for) is that I've spent a lot of time over the past few days reminiscing about my previous job. My walk down memory lane was precipitated by the indictment of a former co-worker on embezzlement charges, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that at this prior company, at which I worked for one whole year, I took about four lunch breaks. Four total. In one year. My job there was demanding and stressful, so I worked right through lunch. Assuming I ate lunch at all. The last month I worked there, my diet consisted mainly of iced coffee.
So I'm giving thanks today for my lunch breaks. That I get to take them. That I get to step away from my desk and enter a different world for an hour each day (today I went to Afghanistan, c/o The Kite Runner). And giving thanks that my job, whatever else I could say about it (and I could say a lot, though mostly through tears and with clenched fists), certainly provides a much better work-life balance than I had with my prior employer. And that is a good thing, indeed.
Daily Photo #3: Self-portrait of me on my lunch break, in theMidtown public space where I normally eat, posing in front of the mercury-ball Christmas tree decoration, which never fails to remind me of The Terminator.
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