To say my life is busy would be an understatement of grandiose proportions. I’m a whirling dervish whose body at this point is waving the white flag and starting to give me signals that stress reduction is required “now!”. I struggle with this issue every day, which in the short-term is stressful (irony) but is helping me correct the path I’m headed on so I can start bringing things back to a healthier pace. If anything I’m blessed with this issue because my life is amazingly full of mostly things that I love or am passionate about. What I didn’t realize is how many of my friends and colleagues are in the same boat, so to speak.
On has a spouse in medical school, another has a four-year old and a wife getting her doctorate, another is a massage therapist working in two clinics and a full-time teaching job, another works 60 hours a week or more and is buying a new house, another is parenting her sister’s children, working full-time and buying a new house, another is commuting to another state to be grandma as well as running her own business and hosting classes and workshops in her home. You get the picture. All around me are people whose lives are rich and full and frantic, hectic, stressful and just busy, busy, busy. We live in a country and in an age where survival is not necessarily the driving force of our actions and we can look to do what makes us happy. So why is our hair falling out, our bodies ballooning with belly fat, and our sleep minimal and not restful? You’d think we were being hunted by wolves or stalked by lions on a daily basis. But not so.
Just like anything else, too much of something is too much and less is more. Less life in our lives can give us our lives back. Just because it’s something we want or something we would normally enjoy doesn’t make it make sense in a life so packed full of things that we can’t breath for all the things we are doing. Life is short and should be filled with joy and wonder and adventure, but it also needs rest and repose and contemplation and, yes, boredom. Boredom is the blank canvas on which your life is painted. If you don’t have a blank canvas but just keep layering color after color over each other, pretty soon it’s not really a life any more, it’s just a pastiche of stuff. Take a moment to stop, breathe, and leave that blank space on your calendar blank. All time at home to ‘putter’, remember how much you like your self in the quiet moments. Or just strive to have a couple of quiet moments once in a while. It can be challenging, but it’s worth it. So I’m told…I have some of them scheduled in here somewhere….
