Today is "Labor Day" in the US and Canada. For a lot of people, it's a day off of work, time to spend with family and friends, or the last day of Summer.
I always get a kick out of people with "normal" jobs. They go to work at the same time as everybody else, have vacation the same time as everybody else, etc. They're on somebody else's schedule.
There's something wrong about being in the "Land of Opportunity" or a country which supposedly stands for "freedom" and having so little or either, don't you think?
Sure, there is both freedom and opportunity by the bucketful here, but only for those who take advantage of it.
I know a lot of people reading this blog work dayjobs. If you're one of those people, I encourage you to look at your current time and scheduling situation to see if it's something you can live with. And I want you to know that there are other options, even if your co-workers aren't aware of them.
To me, time and scheduling are, at the very least, just as important as money. Options, if they're your options, are good. You don't want to have only one specific week out of the year to take a break from your job.
If you're in a job, do what you can to take back control of your time. For example, if you're not feeling like going into work, call in sick. Nobody said you have to be physically sick, did they? "Sick of working" is a legitimate excuse and will give you a taste of the freedom you're working toward. And once you know that it can be yours, you'll be able to create a situation where you can take control of your time like this every single day.
The irony of it is that, when you love what you do, you won't even care about holidays. There have been plenty of times I'll show up at the bank or post office only to discover everybody is off work. Not saying that you should be a workaholic and never take breaks, but life is too short not to enjoy what you do for a living. You don't want "must do" when you can have "I want to" instead.