Friday, February 26, 2016

The forgotten contentment of a good Happy Hour





I'd just like to share a simple pleasure with you that I think we forget about, a lot of the time: the after-work beer at the neighborhood pub.

I ended up doing it two times this week, both times after working at my dad's accounting office, helping him get T4s completed and out the door. The first time I was hanging out with my brother who had a few days in between stints up North working on the census. The second time was my girlfriend and another good friend. It's good to catch up with people you care about and there's something nice about doing it after work.

Both times I was there early, sat down at one of the big wooden tables, put my phone away, and just... drank a beer. Nice and slow.... cue the beer commercial!

Ha... I think there is something that psychologists would back me up on here, which is the benefits of having a "third place" - be it for socialization or contemplation - between work and home. A lot of time we can move from one work area, where we make our money, to another, where we prepare our food, do chores, etc. The neighborhood pub (or coffee shop, etc) fills a need then. And "after work" occupies a cool space temporally: it's not really at a time that we will schedule in advance like our evenings or afternoons... or creates a transition point from "working" to "now my time is for me".

Anyways, this was something that I remembered this week. And remembering simple pleasures is a thing quite worthy in and of itself, and good for our mental health, too.

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