Oh how I can inflate the significance of my daily agenda! Last week I had a particularly busy morning doing tasks of utmost importance, which I had rushed into even before breakfast (because these things just couldn’t wait).
I fired off emails, replied to texts and made several phone calls. When it comes to conducting business, I can be a machine, giving directives, securing commitments and putting out fires before they ever become one.
Suddenly I realized I was hungry. Could it be time for lunch yet, I wondered? Yikes! It was almost noon. I looked over to the counter and saw the empty bowl beside the box of cereal and the banana waiting to be sliced. No wonder I was hungry, I forgot to eat breakfast. Definitely time for a reset.
I fixed my breakfast (for lunch) and then went outside for my “morning” prayer and meditation time. As soon as I walked outside, the wind nearly knocked me over. Immediately I felt my inflated self importance drop into place. Who am I compared to the powerful force of the wind? What is my to-do list compared to the round the clock duties of nature?
Unfortunately I started this pace around 16 years old, working 50 hours a week between two jobs while attending high school and maintaining a 4.0 grade point average. I worked full-time, salaried, to put myself through college and then landed my first sales job.
8 to 5? What’s that? I was in the office by 7 A.M. and worked on proposals and correspondence long into the night. Am I bragging? Not at all. There are significant consequences to living this way.
My health, stress levels, marriage and family suffered due to my obsession with achievement. I have a box of eagle plaques and salesperson of the year trophies to show for my priorities back then. Where is that box? Correct. It’s buried in the attic. During the last move, I threw all the less significant awards away—numerous plaques for salesperson of the month, the quarter and more to commemorate other record achievements and quota busters. Blah blah blah. Who cares now?
The flipside of workaholism is burnout and I began tasting that before I ever turned 30. I couldn’t press my turbo button and accelerate into high gear anymore. I could barely make it into first gear some days. I alternated between not being able to get dressed and out to make my calls, then going out the next day to do double the work to catch up. I had to make sure my numbers still looked good so no one would know I was losing it.
Fast forward 20 years and I can tell you I’ve at least become aware of my pattern—my tendency to fluctuate between paralysis and over accomplishment. I continue to seek personal development, practice mindfulness and implement self-care (when I remember).
I still struggle on a daily basis to find the middle, to find balance. I know what to do but I often resist doing it. Yet every day I get up and try again. I will not give up on myself.
What a gift to step out onto my deck today and experience wind that is more powerful than I could ever be (or would want to be). The treetops were swaying, the wind chimes were singing and I felt delightfully small. I can also stare at the ocean, the sky or a mountain and feel the majesty of them and the smallness of me. I can listen to the rush of water or the boom of thunder and my thinking gets right-sized again.
How refreshing and relieving to remember I am not that special. I am one of billions. My tasks are ordinary. My existence is temporary. The planet did just fine before me and it will survive quite well after I’m gone. Who am I to think I have any more to offer than the next person? I’m not saving the world or doing anything nearly as mighty as the wind.
We all have gifts and talents and we are responsible to use them. Please don’t buy into the belief that you are here to clock in and clock out and that’s it. Whether your grand purpose is to use your gifts from 9 to 5 or in your personal life, just do it! It’s no accident you’re here, right now, for such a time as this. We are all here right now, to be who we were created to be—nothing more and nothing less.
Someone once told me arrogance is thinking I’m better than other people. Confidence is knowing no one is better than me. I pray you go forward today confidently trusting yourself to bring forth your gifts, while remembering your neighbors’ gifts are just as important. Let us all be reminded that nothing is so important that we can’t take time to relax, to embrace simply being and to eat breakfast at breakfast time.
Have a wonderful day remembering your beautiful, small place and keeping all of life in proportion so at the end of the day, you feel you have spent this gift of time humbly, wisely and joyfully ... living.
***Not 24 hours after writing this, I was using the elliptical machine at the gym when I noticed my shirt was inside out. Oy. The good news is I got dressed and made it out of the house to do something good for myself. The not so great news is that I probably dressed in a hurry, not mindful enough to notice my shirt. Progress not perfection, right? Oh well, if we can’t learn to laugh at ourselves, we better figure out a way. Life is short! Cheers!
