This is the third week that I’m writing about Work Life IMBalance, and it’s been even more interesting that the first two weeks. As much as I expected to spend more time working this week, I also had a lot of family commitments that needed to be addressed. If you’re a bit lost at this point, you might want to jump back to the first post in this series and start from there.

I made a very conscious decision that I was going to be much more spontaneous this week, and let the chips fall as they may. The work that I do does allow me quite a bit of flexibility, and honestly I haven’t actually taken planned time off in quite a while. I’ve definitely not taken time off for myself, so this week was about being spontaneous and recharging.

I was still in Jersey City visiting my daughter, and my middle daughter was still with me for part of the week. Then the remainder of the week she was gone but my older daughter who lives in Jersey City was still there.

On several visits to the city, we let the winds take us where they may, and made very uninformed decisions about eating. Being uninformed may sound bad, but actually it worked out quite well. Our spontaneous, and definitely fluid plans led us to many different restaurants. We ventured into Central Park and took the better part of the day to just wander around. We even did that without a map. It was oddly relaxing to me. One thing we were amazed about Central Park was how the park could be so close to 5th avenue, yet the sounds of the city were all but non-existent. 

We exited the park and visited the iconic Apple Store. Unlike my other travels, I had done no research on the store. I didn’t realize that the entire store, below the glass cube, was underneath the sidewalk and street. I knew that the Apple Stores are the most profitable per-foot retail stores in the world, and that this particular store was one of the most profitable Apple Stores, but I had no idea what that meant in terms of actual transactions. Five minutes inside the store showed me why. It was jammed with people. There were products available to testing, touching, and exploring. And every product had several people looking at it. The sales staff were extremely helpful, and even when it was obvious that we weren’t actually going to purchase, we never felt rushed. We did gather some vital information as to the relative benefits of the Apple MacAir vs the MacBook Pro. The sales guy spent about 45 minutes with us, and at no point did I feel pressured to buy. Of course, if my finances had allowed for it, I would have bought a number of products.

Upon exiting the store I discovered that F.A.O. Schwartz was next-door. I convinced my middle daughter, in very spontaneous fashion, that we needed to go in there. Within the span of the 100 yards that separate the two stores I tried to convey the importance of the store and the movie Big starring a very young Tom Hanks. If you have’t seen the movie, go watch it. Also know that Zoltan is properly displayed in the store, and the musical piano is on one of the upper floors. And despite the fact that the store was jammed, it never felt crowded. I would venture to say that F.A.O. Schwartz is in the running for some of the most profitable retail space per square foot after it’s neighboring Apple store. Golly, a lot of product was moving through the doors.

Throughout the week my middle daughter and I explored the area. We ventured to places without planning. By the weekend we felt pretty confident that we knew how to get around, and the addition of my older daughter made the travel that much easier. She definitely has an amazing grasp of the public transportation system.

We took a sightseeing bus tour that started at just south of Central Park and culminated at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. We rode the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. We toured on the bus back up to Central Park. We went into stores on the spur of the moment. We ate whatever appealed to us, whenever it appealed to us. We lived without a plan.

But each night, when we made it back to the apartment, I was too tired to get any work done. I had considered blogging about the trip every day. I was going to create a travel log. I was going to write about the things I learned, the foods I experienced, and the adventures that I took. Yet each night, sleep beckoned, and the Macbook Pro stayed in my backpack. At most, I would take it out to download the pictures off my camera. Occasionally I would upload the photos to Facebook. But other than that, I didn’t do any work.

Part of me felt a little guilty for not working, but part of me was very aware that this wasn’t the time for work. My oldest daughter has been living a fairly austere and hurried life, and her apartment needed some attending to. She had a lot of household tasks that needed to be caught up on. She needed somebody to cook for her. Somebody to do those parts of the cleaning that never get done. Somebody to go to the store for her, and to help haul the food the 1/2 mile from the grocery store to her apartment building, and then up the three flights of rickety stairs into the apartment, not to mention putting all the food away.

And I took on those tasks very willingly. I took them on with a very conscious decision that those were more important than any business work I could be doing. I lugged laundry the four blocks to the laundromat. I learned how to do four loads of laundry simultaneously, and how to do just enough drying of the clothes to minimize the cost but allow then to get dry enough that they will air dry in the apartment without over humidifying it.

I made the conscious decision to spend time with one or both of my daughters on this once-in-a-lifetime trip to NYC and NJ. And I loved every minute of it.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on an airplane over West Virginia on the way home after two weeks out of the rat race.

The one thing that I learned about myself was that I can be spontaneous. I can live without an ironclad plan that is measured out to the exact mile and minute. I discovered that the world has an awful lot to offer, and you can’t parcel out your time until you’re in the moment. Between my recent Bike Across Kansas with one daughter, and this trip to NYC with another two, I’ve learned an awful lot.

So, although the teeter-totter is stuck with one side firmly planted on the family side of the equation…I’m not only OK with that. I’m elated that I was able to do it.

This particular trip is ending in a couple days, but I’m not sad that it’s over. I’m really happy for the things that I learned about myself, excited that I was able to spend time with my daughters, and fascinated by all the things that I experienced while on this visit. I probably learned more about myself in these two weeks than at any other point in my life. I broke through some fears that I had (public transportation being one of the biggest) and challenged myself to do things I’d never considered before. Overall, it’s been a great visit.

With all that in mind, what did you learn about yourself this week?