The picture above is the perfect example of how I get so frustrated. I’m terrible at focus, doing one thing at a time. I’m angry my breakfast doesn’t get in my mouth…probably because I’m not left handed and should put everything else away and eat. I’m actually not reading two magazines at once. It’s just one was already open from last night. My phone is right there and I’m interrupted by texts from friends. And my journal…Lord help the poor soul that reads those when I’m gone. My son walked in and gave me a strange look. That’s when I realized what I was doing and when I told him to take a picture so I could post about my insanity!
I seriously wonder how I’ve made it this far in my life without getting completely lost. I guess if you don’t have an ultimate destination, you can’t really get lost no matter how far you wander…and my mind really wanders!
It seems to me that we’re all too busy. Whenever someone asks me what I did this morning, I usually talk about my morning routine. It’s taken me years to develop and it has really just evolved into more the past couple of years since my sons have come into young adulthood. Suddenly my days aren’t filled with laundry, food, and rides. I have more time for the other things I want to do, but what is it that I want to do?
I’ve felt a bit lost, wondering where to start looking for new things to fill my time, how to feel “productive”. I guess it all boils down to what I want, but then it always has.
When I got married, I wanted my home life to be my focus, not my career. I spent more time at home after work. And when my sons were born, I wanted my children to be my focus, so I spent more time with them instead of my job, my friends, and other things. As they grew and we decided we would homeschool, my focus changed to providing them with the support they’d need to experience and learn new things. These were all my choices. I didn’t have to. I could have spent more of my time at work. I could have decided that it was more important to have “me time” and gone out with friends. But I chose what I wanted. And I wanted a close family.
It all sounds so smooth and thought out when I write it like that but really it was a huge mess of daily adjustments and a metric crap ton of self-doubt.
What is it that I want now? What is my goal these days, to be a decent person, to love those around me, to write what I’m thinking and feeling and share it with you?
Sometimes I feel incredibly busy and overwhelmed, and then I look at other people’s lives and wonder why I can’t take on as much as they do. I know everyone has a different tolerance for how much they can put into a day or week. We’re all wired for something specific. The complication is finding out what works for us personally in a world that seems to think what works for one would work for anyone if they just “did it right.” We can’t spend our lives comparing ourselves to others. It gets us nowhere.
Then there are days and weeks that go by that leave me feeling so unproductive. What does that even mean?
Why do we worry so much about being productive? Some of us just get lucky and never get so behind that we have to quit and start over. Some of us make enough good choices to be able to not worry about the bad ones. Some of us had a decent start. And then there are the others, the unlucky, the slow learners, the left behind. What about them? Is your life worth nothing if you don’t produce anything tangible in the end? What happens if you don’t end up with a stable family, a place to live, a good career, or a thriving business? What if you make mistakes you can’t fix? It all seems like a game, one you can lose.
The truth is we all die in the end. We all lose eventually. Life is not a game to win in my opinion, it’s a movie to watch, a book to read, an experience. What if we just enjoyed that experience, no matter where it led? What if we stopped worrying about creating anything but ourselves? What if we allowed others to do the same? What would that look like?