I was reminded yesterday of the restful power of spontaneous unscripted breaks from routine.

We’ve had a good week, but it was a week. Lots of demands, lots of high performance work, and when Saturday rolled around I was ready for a break and a change of scenery.

So I told Tina, “It’s going to be a warm day. I’m pulling the doors off the Jeep, throwing the top down—full safari mode—and we’re getting out. Where to? Don’t know. Don’t care. Doesn’t matter. So grab your sunglasses and some sunscreen Momma. Call the kids and see if they want to join us, but either way let’s hit the road.”

Now, to be clear, it was way too late to make any kind of big plan. It was pretty much too late to make any plan at all. But after all these years I’d say tina and I have pretty much mastered the ability to go get lost and have fun.

That’s just a figure of speech of course. We didn’t get lost. Turns out the kids did want to join in so we swung by in our stripped down Jeep, picked them up, let our granddaughter Olivia DJ some of her currently favorite tunes (which right now is all things Julie Andrews) and ended up driving PCH in Malibu. We drove north. We drove south. We talked. We took turns driving. We stopped at Neptune's Net for lunch which is not at all the best place to eat seafood on PCH, but we were hungry, it was there, and yesterday nothing else mattered. And we finally ended up at Malibu lagoon where we collected a few shells for Livy, watched pelicans, and saw a Great Blue Heron catch a fish. I also waded into the tidal zone and brought her a sea hare (that’s a slug) the size of a football so she could rub its slimy skin. Finally, it was a drive back through the canyons to some sorbet at Tifa in Agoura, and then home.

By the time we walked back through the door we were so relaxed. You know … “a day soaking up sun by the ocean” kind of relaxed.

The moral of this story is simple. Our little adventure was unplanned, unscripted, and could have gone a hundred other ways and been just as good. Because the point was it broke us out of our mental spaces and left everything behind for a bit. Just a little intentional change of venue.

So that’s what I’m prescribing for you for sometime this week or even today. For this week’s stresses you don’t need a lot of money. You don’t need a big plan. You don’t necessarily need a spa day or a fancy restaurant reservation or a tropical vacation or anything other than the desire to take a little break. So take a little break. Just go. Change the script. Change venues. Change the scenery. Grab your shoes and sunglasses and maybe a jacket for later and just head out the front door.

Take a walk, take a bike, take a drive, take a book, take whatever … but just go. The only rule is: Make sure you accomplish absolutely nothing on your To Do list.

Finding rest is not about anything other than making a decision to rest. Rest, not sleep, rest. So if you need the rest, take the rest. And if you know someone who needs the rest, go kidnap them today and do … anything, or nothing, but go.

We all need a break. We all need rest and re-creation. It’s the only way we find the space and the grace and the strength to build ourselves a beautiful life.