Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Quite a beautiful day here in WI today. Warm – well, WI warm (44 degrees) and sunny. Good day to get things done, and the Packers aren’t playing until Monday night, so no distraction there. Like so many things in life, weekends can be a battle of wills that rage within us. Lazy vs. active, for example. Get done with the work week, weekends are all about just kicking back and doing nothing… except that there’s always something. Something that needs doing. So – get busy and get to it, or just blow it off?… I think every weekend I fight this battle to some extent. Heck, maybe every day. The older I get the harder it is to remember what it felt like when I was young, what occupied my thoughts, and how I felt about myself. But it seems to me that as I get older, have more money, more stuff, more responsibilities – along with it comes this feeling that I should always be doing something. Like, I have to get something done. That feeling can really mess with my ability to just kick back and relax without any anxiety. Because… well, I got stuff I *should* be doing. I’m not sure where or who I heard this from, but somewhere I heard the term “we should all over ourselves”. Maybe what I should do is get better at doing nothing. And, as discussed in last week’s blog – it’s easier to relax when we aren’t pulling ourselves in a hundred different directions by saying yes to everything and taking on all the responsibilities that go with that. The less cluttered our minds, properties and lives are, the more time we’ll have to just kick back and enjoy the ride. And focus on just a few things that are truly important. It’s very hard to enjoy present moments when our heads are always worried about the future. And the more stuff we have, the more stuff we have to take care of. Maybe if we just looked for meaning. Keep things that have meaning. Do things that have meaning. Let everything else go. Maybe we should implement an 80/20 rule for our time – let the top 20% of our activities – the people, places and things we love the most – use up 80% of our time. It would be hard to track that – but easier used in this context – when faced with a decision – “should I buy this?”, “should I do this?”, “should I keep this?”… would it crack the top 20%?… if not, let it go. Somewhat similar to last week’s “hell yeah, or no” analogy, but with numbers. I like numbers. They can be used together – “Is this a hell yeah?… top 20%?… or no?”. That being said – I have a lot to take care of today. It’s a beautiful day, don’t want to waste it. But today – it’s all top 20% stuff on the schedule. That makes it a day to look forward to.
