What Happens When I Don’t Want to Work

I love my job. Seriously, I’m one of those people who says I’d still work if I won the lottery. What I’d do is vary where I worked, as I’d use my newfound wealth to travel the globe, one time zone at a time, because I hate jet lag.

But, for the past couple of days, I haven’t wanted to do any work. I’m visiting the in-laws in upstate NY, but staying in an Airbnb so that I can work undisturbed and so that my children won’t disturb their grandparents. But, working undisturbed this morning meant making numerous comments on Facebook, eating a donut, thinking about eating one of my children’s donuts, drinking bubble water and being annoyed that it’s not my favorite bubble water. (Yes, I’m a water snob. Living in Europe for 8 years will do that to you.)

Then, I listened to the entire Dear Evan Hansen album on Spotify for the 463rd time while I played Candy Crush, trying to come up with a good topic for today’s Inc. column. I started numerous times–once about the new immigration proposal (my take, because English is necessary for success in the US, it makes sense to require that skill, and I like giving preference to people with degrees from US institutions, but I’d also like to see more immigration opportunities where people are given a set amount of time to become proficient in English), once about new research on mean girls (definitely going to pick that one up later), and once about light bulbs in the workplace (seriously, it is more interesting than it sounds).

But, none of those ideas really got going, so I went down into the scary basement to check out the washer and dryer, and they look fine. Then I woke up my teenager whose first words were “we’re going to the mall today, right?” Offspring number 2 is still soundly sleeping, even though I’ve tried to wake him up. My fault, as we stayed up late last night babysitting his toddler cousin.

This lack of desire to work happens every once in a while, but more often than not, I have so many ideas spinning in my head, it’s difficult to get them all down in the time I have. Most of the time, I look forward to sitting down at my computer with a nice, empty screen for me to fill. But today? I’m still on a donut hunt, and, yes, I’m headed to the mall. Hot Topic is the first stop on our list. Wish me luck.