Our economic status as a country is in decline. Our jobs are rare and our funds are fading. With all this activity and negative energy that surrounds us, do you allow yourself for an escape? I am not talking about a vacation. That’s a little too pricey for American wallets right now. The escape I am talking about is a personal escape. A sanctuary is, by definition, “any place of refuge or an asylum”. A sanctuary, however, does not need to be a physical place. It can be a hobby or activity that distracts you from all your worries and problems. It can be a cigarette you smoke, a book you read, or a gym you workout at. Anything that can take you out of the elemental world we live in.

While on the bus at night, I observe people who cannot leave their work in the office. They are constantly on their cell phones talking about work, or on their phones sending emails. I even witnessed one girl, who was on the bus get off at the last stop before the express ride home, to go back to the office. At what point do we say, I am on my way home. This is not our fault. It’s the companies that hire these people. They drill it into your heads that to be successful, you need to be a workaholic… People go to rehab for being a workaholic. There has to be a drawn line between our time off and our time at work. Even though the time we have off, for the most part, is dedicated to others in our life. We fill our weekends and nights with errands and favors for loved ones.

Money will not make you happy, but like my father jokes “it sure makes life easier”. Do your job while you are at work but take time out for yourself. Go to the gym, read your book, share a conversation with a friend and lose yourself in your own mind. You won’t realize it, but when you’re all finished, you will see that the hour you took to escape let you think of nothing but the task at hand. All the anger, frustration, and stress of your life was forgotten about for one hour that you had for yourself. Find a healthy escape. Do not get caught up with negative escapes like drugs and alcohol. Avoid escapes that are easy to get lost in.

It’s just as easy to become addicted to the positive sanctuaries we’ve created. An addiction is like a forest; it’s easy to wander through, but one step too far and you can lose your way forever. It’s important to find a healthy medium between our escapes and reality.

The world, as I explained in my article Organized Chaos, is an organized machine of chaos. Use your sanctuary as an escape, not a permanent home. Do not use it to avoid your problems, use it to get away from them temporarily. To use it in terms of my metaphor, find a sanctuary to keep your mind from getting lost in the forest, but never forget that you are, in fact, in the forest.