Too Much Work, Not Enough Play

Sunday Morning commentator Nancy Giles thinks everyone needs to relax and take a break from work.

Were you "too busy" to see friends and family at parties, barbecues, reunions? Are you too tired for a private life? Or, to be more blunt: Has work somehow replaced sex? Well, in Germany, a recent study published by university researchers at the University of Goettingen says that for Germans, work, and more work, has become a substitute for sex, and less sex. Now that's just wrong. What came first? The non-existent sex, or the constant "stuff" filling the time?

My Deutchland brothers and sisters: I feel your pain! There was a historical period in my homeland at the beginning of a decade called "The Eighties" when, although fashion and music were quite terrible, a sexier, disco feeling still existed and a song called "9 to 5" accurately described a typical American work day. It was a cellphone-free existence.

That is so over. From captains of industry to regular working schmos, work and "stuff" is constant, with a laptop slung over our shoulder, jabbing on a Blackberry, taking meetings on those "Star Trek" headset cellphones that make us look like we're walking the streets arguing with ourselves. Doesn't that look attractive?

I, too, have been busy this summer, and tense, and I didn't even get what was missing. Dag! Where's my bong-chika-bong-bong? I am determined to get my groove back. The summer may be over, mein liebchen, but let's not make the same mistake this fall. Take weekends off! Celebrate Octoberfest, for Helmut's sake. We weren't meant to hurtle through this melting, bizarre universe all alone, with a high-speed connection as our only comfort. It's human connections that matter, and those take time. Love takes time. Sex... takes less time, but it still take time. Just remember — to make that time, you've got to stop and smell the Edelweiss.