I have observed a big problem affecting seemingly everyone lately. I call this problem the “Big O”. Now get your mind out of the gutter. I am not referring to anything physical in nature; also I am not referring to obesity. The “Big O” I am talking about is over-scheduling.

The great old song by Simon and Garfunkel diagnosed this problem may years ago when they sang the song Feeling Groovy: "Slow down you move to fast. You’ve got to make the morning last. Just kicking down those cobble stones. Looking for love and feeling groovy."

That was nearly 40 years ago when they made this popular song. Now the problem is even worse. We try to do way too much in a shorter amount of time. To get more done we cut back on sleep. I read somewhere that 100 years ago Americans averaged 9.5 hours of sleep a night. Today it is 7 hours. Most people get by on far less than that.

Why do we do it? Psychologists tell us it’s because it makes us feel important. We are sending out a message to others “Look at me! I am a 24/7, man. Notice how busy I am? I am so important.”

Now we can’t even do one thing at a time. We are a nation of multi-taskers. We carry on phone conversations while typing e-mail messages also keeping our ears cocked to the news on the cable channel. In fact even your old relaxation friend the “boob tube” has become a multi-tasker. Most TVs today have split screens with several things going on at once, plus the audio tract and bits of information scrolling across the bottom the screen. Watching TV has gotten almost exhausting.

But it gets worse we even overschedule our vacation time. We try to cram so much into a short amount of time that we often come back to work more exhausted than when we left. The power boaters are the worst for this. We are point A to Point B people. Crank up the RPM’s get me to the marina on time. Sail boaters are more relaxed. They know they can’t always depend on the wind, and although from time to time they crank up the auxiliary engine but for the most part they would rather be sailing around with no particular place to go (thanks Chuck Berry)

The best prescription for the “Big O” is simply cruising the lake on your boat. They don’t deliver the newspaper to the aft deck of your boat. Cell phones don’t always work and TV screen is usually small and only gets a couple of channels. I hope you are getting the message, if not hello Mr. and Mrs. Over scheduler. Turn off the cell phone and TV and put down the newspaper. Pick up a good novel instead. Most importantly just get out and go on the lake. Find a spot to anchor close your eyelids and drift into a delicious nap. Get that groovy feeling again.

The alternative can be kind of bleak. It’s called the big sleep. It’s very popular among the "Big O" set. Watch out or you could over-schedule yourself to death. To loosely paraphrase Emily Dickinson from one of her famous poems “Death”: Because I would not stop for life – It kindly stopped for me.

Keep that in mind next time you are tempted to work all weekend and blow off the lake.

Boating’s still good,
Barry