[paradox460]

There's something strong to be said about it, and not in a mean way

When I was laid off a couple months ago, the first thing I did was go out and mow my lawn. One hour of simple, clean labor, with clear progress, goals, and solitude. It helped me stay out of a bad mental frame, and when I finished I went inside and sent out a few hundred applications

Over the next several weeks, I spent a lot of time that wasn't spent on finding a new job working on my yard. Fixing sprinklers, cleaning up the edges of the grass, turning, peating, and mulching garden beds, and more

While this job search period took longer than any of my past ones, and ostensibly should have been more stressful, it wasn't. Is that because I spent most of the downtime working outdoors? Probably, who knows? It was certainly a better use of my time than sitting indoors moping

[dwroberts]

Although I’ve not been laid off (sorry to hear that), had a similar experience tending to my garden recently. Working to keep some fussy plants alive in my garden has been surprisingly therapeutic and put a lot of other stuff in perspective

[paradox460]

While the layoff was inconvenient, yes, it's put me in a better place at a better company. I was stagnant at my old one and starting to hate my work

I used to laugh at the king of the hill joke "Why would anyone do drugs when you could mow the lawn" but now I understand it completely

[fuzzfactor]

When life gives you lemons, don't just touch grass, mow it down to size first and grow it back that way you realy want :)