{"id":243,"date":"2023-05-24T19:21:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T18:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pcrest.com\/blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2023-05-24T19:21:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T18:21:19","slug":"jam-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/24\/jam-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Jam TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found<\/em> <em>There<\/em>, Lewis Carroll shares an interaction between the White Queen and Alice. The White Queen tries to hire Alice, offering \u201cTwo pence per week and jam every other day.\u201d Alice explains that she isn\u2019t looking for a job and doesn\u2019t want jam today anyway. The White Queen responds that Alice couldn\u2019t have jam today, even if she wanted it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u201cThe rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alice is sure that this means that there will be jam the next day, but no, insists the queen. Because, of course, it\u2019s NEVER jam TODAY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The phrase, \u201cNever jam today\u201d is quite popular in England, where people use it to talk about promises made that are never kept such as, \u201cWithin a decade, we will have inexpensive, nationwide, high-speed trains!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whether we call it the \u201cProtestant Work Ethic\u201d or \u201cwork before play\u201d (or any of many other formulations), the idea that work should take precedence, with any jam (rewards, playtime, relaxation, enjoyment) coming later, is so much a part of our shared culture that many of us are not even aware of how deeply ingrained it is. It tells us to feel guilty if we eat dessert before our vegetables, both literally and metaphorically. If we\u2019re not doing our best on every task while at work, and continually striving to take care of our health, our home, our neighborhood, our planet, and all our relationships (being the best parent, sibling, friend, adult child, neighbor, citizen possible), why then we must be lazy and don\u2019t deserve jam. At least not yet. Not until the work is done. Unfortunately, we often move our own goalposts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I\u2019ll have some jam after I finish my dissertation\u2026. after I make associate professor\u2026 when I\u2019m tenured\u2026after I retire\u2026<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I\u2019ll have time for jam when the kids aren\u2019t so little\u2026 when they\u2019re in school\u2026 when they\u2019ve gone to college \u2026 when they don\u2019t need me anymore\u2026 when the grand kids are older\u2026<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I\u2019m saving jam for when I finish my degree\u2026 after I find a good job\u2026 when I\u2019ve settled down and started a family\u2026&nbsp; when the credit cards are paid off\u2026 when the house is paid for\u2026 when I\u2019m not so busy taking care of my aging parents\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But if we want a life that is enjoyable and where we take care of ourselves for the long haul, then we\u2019ve got to find time for jam today. If we refuse to pause and recognize how much we have done and celebrate it with a bit of jam, REGARDLESS of how much we still need to do, then we are little better than a mule pulling a plow on the field of our goals. The point is QUALITY of life\u2026not PRODUCTIVITY of life. Increasing the quality of our lives doesn\u2019t mean giving up on being productive. But it does mean understanding the idea of balance and enjoying the little things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s more, the people who love us and whose happiness is inextricably connected to our own benefit when we make time for jam today. Think about the people you love: Don\u2019t you enjoy a kind of jam-by-association when they have jam? Doesn\u2019t it do your heart good when they have jam today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There will always be work to be done. <strong>Always<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having a bit of jam doesn\u2019t change that; but it can change <strong>us<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll shares an interaction between the White Queen and Alice. The White Queen tries to hire Alice, offering \u201cTwo&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33,59,77],"tags":[25,78],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-attitude","category-expectations","category-quality-of-life","tag-quality-of-life","tag-work","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/jam.jpg?fit=900%2C598&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pcrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}