Opinion: SBJ control freak seeks sunny skies

As you read this, I am basking on Key Largo. I will spend a little more than a week in Florida, then return to Springfield to putter around the house for a week.

Yes, two whole weeks away from SBJ. Who’d have thought it possible?!

A few years ago I had an epiphany regarding vacation time. For years I took vacations piecemeal – a day here, an extra long weekend there, and – surprise! – somehow I never felt rested or revitalized from my time off.

Instead, I was frustrated, burned out and bone weary.

Eventually I realized that the reason I wouldn’t take time off was that I was unconsciously waiting for a “stopping point,” a guiltless moment of slowdown, a get-out-of-work-free card.

Of course there is no such thing.

We publish 52 weeks a year, and the pressures are both constant and varied. Putting together a newspaper is a creative endeavor, combining the talents of reporters, photographers and graphic designers, but it is also a just-in-time manufacturing operation in which the steps repeat weekly but the finished product is constantly changing.

There is no stopping point.

I have since further realized that, deep down, the issue wasn’t finding a stopping point so I could let go; it was thinking that the world would stop if I did let go. The issue is control. Or rather, being a control freak.

Since that realization, I still take a day here or there, but I also make sure I get in at least one two-week vacation a year. I’ve learned to delegate. I’ve learned to accept that while my being gone will make things more difficult around the office, I work with good people and they can handle it.

And I owe it to them to let them stretch themselves, to take responsibility and show leadership.

Have you taken a vacation lately? Are you waiting for a stopping point? Or are you afraid the world might end if you aren’t there to run it?

I talk about letting go like it’s easy for me. Of course, it’s not. It’s a huge internal struggle. Imagine me with a white-knuckle grip on a copy of SBJ. Now imagine a second me with a prybar, a can of Mace and a bullhorn: “Release the Business Journal. Put your hands up and step away from the publication.”

In fact, as I write this, I am mentally prying my fingers off the Business Journal. I think I’m going to need that Mace.

But if you’re reading this, it worked.

See you in mid-February!

Clarissa French is editor of Springfield Business Journal.

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