Life Unzipped

Life Unzipped

What are you up to these days? Do you spend your days making decisions about how to spend your time, doing some work, playing some, sleeping some, attending to family some,  care of  yourself some? Or are you a busy bee who zips from one thing to the next, racing through everything, savoring nothing?

One of the features of being alive is the doing of stuff. No matter how you cut it, we all have stuff to do. We have to eat, and sleep, we have to engage some, get dressed, well, I don’t need to write out a todo list here, You’ve got yours, I’ve got mine. There are so many ways to do it. We can do our stuff mindfully, paying attention to our tasks, getting them done quickly and well, leaving ourselves time to enjoy our loved ones, and ourselves.

Or we can slog through task after task, resenting the doing, feeling put upon, and at the end of the day, we feel drained and unsettled. And then, our restful sleep eludes us, setting us up for another day like the one before, only with a little more stress, a little less satisfaction.

And there is so much that we do that isn’t really necessary, and so much that we don’t do that would make a big difference in how we feel; a little attention to wholesome food, a little quiet time for contemplation or meditation, a little time for moving and caring for our bodies.

Since doing stuff is what we do, it is worth spending some time thinking about it, and making some evaluations, and fiddling with it a bit. Frankly, I was kind of shocked at what I learned when I kept a time diary for a few days. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I did, but I was kind of surprised at what I found out about my days.

I learned that I had a thousand interruptions in a day, but still got my detailed work done competently. Good for me. I learned that I spent a lot of time shopping for junk that added nothing to my life, or happiness. Hmm. Let’s cross that off.  I learned that I got a decent amount of exercise in every day. Good for me. I learned that I spent hours watching TV. Hmm. Let’s cross that one off, too. I learned that I could easily spend a few hours playing video games. Uh. Hmm. Well, we will have to think about that one.

By looking at what I actually did, I decided to make some little tweaks. After all, we all have the same 168 hours every week, and some of us get some really wonderful stuff done, and some of us just don’t.

I cut way down on the shopping. That felt weird at first, and now I mostly don’t notice. Why do I have what I like, and like what I have.

I cut way down on TV time. It was an amazing time sucker, really useful on days when I need to deeply flop, but so not useful for getting stuff done.  Why do I spend my time?

Suddenly, it seemed I had more time for reading. My old habits of reading a few books a week has started to revive, the giant stack by my bed started to diminish, the books on my Kindle began to be finished.  How do I choose what I do?

Suddenly, I had time to organize stuff. I had time to release a whole lot of clothes that didn’t fit anymore back into the wild. Why do I let go that which I no longer need?

Best of all, I had more time to spend with you, to give you my full attention, and to feel your friendship all the way in. That beats any TV show, or shopping trip ever.

How have I changed from zipping around to choosing what matters most?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 07122103

I will be traveling the next few days, so my posting times may be wonky, just to let you know.