Take 5

What do you do when your computer crashes? Take 5. What do you do when you are frustrated at work? Take 5. What do you do when you want to scream or cry or punch something or just don't know what to do to make this stop?

Take 5.

Origins are murky. In theater, it means let's take five minutes away from all this rehearsing and come back. In business, it's a five minute break. In LIFE....ah, life. Well, in life, which as we all know is fraught with challenges, frustrations, unexpected events, conflagrations and more...in life, it's a great way to bring things back to quasi-normal.

When something isn't working and you feel yourself growing more and more irritated, frustrated, determined-to-make-this-work-damn-it, maybe it's time to take 5.

And I mean this very specifically. Walk away from the source whether it's your computer, your S.O., your exam problem, your dilemma of any kind and go lie down. I mean it. Lie down. Okay, maybe you can't do that. So, go AWAY. Find another room or space or seat or sidewalk and go there. Go to a different place. Sit. Lie down if you can. And put a timer on your phone or watch and just take FIVE whole minutes to be away from whatever it is.

In the first minute, you'll probably just grumble. You'll still be irritated. In the second minute, you might begin to relax just a bit, but you'll still be hanging on to whatever sent you into this time-out to begin with. By the third minute, your breathing may begin to slow down and other thoughts may begin to float into your mind, related or unrelated. At minute four, you should be able to really take a good, deep breath now and start to let go if you haven't already. And by the fifth minute, you may begin to see things a bit more clearly. Or your computer may have restarted. Or you may realize that there's more going on than you realized in life.

No matter what happens, when you realize you -- yes, adult YOU -- need a time out, take it! Take 5. And if you need a little distracting music to really take you away from your immediate problem, here's a great link for you.

PS: I picked the Chanel No. 5 logo because that's the only scent I've worn all my life, and ever will. Just sayin'. :-)