This Columbus Day

From: The Emotional Calendar
As published in Psychology Today

Happy Columbus Day again. I continue to offer you advice to embrace this easy, lazy, nothing-you-have-to-do in particular holiday. The lack of drama is what is so good. You can take a day off, have yourself a long-weekend, enjoy the break in your usual routine. If you have plans already, make sure you like the way they look today. If you are just considering what you might like to be doing, I say consider how you want to be today. Embrace the feeling you want to be feeling today and make plans accordingly. If you want to be lazy, don’t make too many plans. If you want to be off on your own, maybe take a meandering walk, or a long run, or bike ride. If you want to feel closely connected to those especially important in your life, remember the close connections that exist for you. Whether you reach out on line [good] or by phone [better] or in person [best], you can enjoy a personal day feeling the mutuality and interdependency that life requires. Enjoy it.

What does this all have to do with Christopher Columbus? Not too much, really. Born Domenico Columbo from Genoa, and eventually financed by the Queen of Spain, he led the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria in search of a new trading route to Asia came upon the Bahamas Archipeligo in 1492. The natives he described as people who live in god “en dios.” Indios in English — Indians. Some of us are bothered by history, finding this holiday more than a little disingenuous. C.C. discovered an already populated land, and didn’t even know where he landed, etc… But by the look of the Twitter trends today, most of us are spontaneously just into taking advantage of a nice day off, one way or another.

I say let’s step back and put this holiday into healthy perspective. As I encouraged last year at this time, please consider the following from The Emotional Calendar: “Unlike the momentous, grand-slam holiday weekends Memorial Day and Labor Day, Columbus Day is easy, and that’s precisely what’s so very nice about it. No big demands. This is the early fall, and it’s already underway. We’ve already put the work in to accomplish the transition from summer. New schedule, new look, new palate of colors and tastes – done. We’ve done the hard part. Now, Columbus Day provides just the right occasion to quietly celebrate rediscovering what we can and do enjoy about the season.”