October 25, 2007 Bonus Blog
Working on a vertical scene of four water falls, deep in the Sierra Madres:



Sometimes the stress of my life gets to me. I'm always on the move, going somewhere, speaking here, signing there (I have a book signing tonight at Barnes & Noble in Tempe). For the past several months I have been telling Kathy that my fantasy is to take ten weeks off and not go anywhere (Kathy took that ten week Semester At Sea cruise, so that's where the ten weeks came from). I just want to stay home and piddle around, go for a walk, take a nap—no deadlines, no budget meetings, no management hassles.

Someone, not Kathy, has speculated that I would go stir crazy within two weeks, but I want to find out. I have a hunch I would enjoy it immensely. Anyway, that's the fantasy. So, imagine my interest when I read in the new Time magazine about a business guru, Swami Parthasarathy, who enlightens CEOs on the real nature of stress:

"You believe work tires you? Work can never tire you! What tires you are your worries about the past and anxiety for the future."

The Swami, who's 80, (oops, sorry, had to do a phone interview with the Salt Lake Journal on our pick of Heber City as the number one Poetry Gathering), says all stress is internal. He starts his day at 4 a.m. and ends it at 9:30 p.m., never needing a break or vacation, "with plenty of time to maintain his health with yoga and cricket." He's written ten books ("every word [written], between 4 and 6 in the morning. After six, it's not worth reading.")

So, I'm going home for lunch, to take a nap and think about all of this.

"You are the architect of your fortune. You are the architect of your misfortune."
—Swami Parthasarathy