I'm not the type person who likes to put things into a "hold box" to take care of later. Never have been, never will be. But, there is a time when it's very difficult NOT to think about other things besides tasks that need to be accomplished. That time is now.
To make my point, I recall the four years I served in the Pentagon on the Army staff (four years almost to the day, and they were long days I can tell ya). The period between Thanksgiving and New Years Day was a time when everything seemed to slow down a bit. Everyone in the Pentagon seemed to have other things on their mind besides work. The closer we got to Christmas, the slower things moved, and then the week between Christmas and New Years Eve everything seemed to sort of stop in place. Not really, because military operations were still ongoing elsewhere, but it seemed there were far less people walking the halls, doing the sort of hectic coordination typically experienced at other times during the year. That was a long time ago, and times have certainly changed. 1970's era Pentagon work was definitely NOT 2009 vintage.
Each year at this time I reflect back to my Pentagon experience, and how everything seemed to slow down at this time of year. Tonight the President is going to announce his new Afghanistan war strategy, and "slow" will not be a word much used for the next several months. But still, it's nice every once in awhile to sit back and reflect on the good things, and take it a bit easier than normal.
