Last week was one of those running-just-to-keep-up weeks…one of those not-enough-time-to-get-enough-sleep weeks, one of those ‘please no one ask me to do anything else, I’m full to over-flowing weeks’….one of those laundry-mountain, dirty dishes, empty fridge and cupboard weeks…
WHEW.
I don’t like being like that, because it isn’t really BE-ing, it’s just all busy do-ing. Nothing gets done well, everything is hasty and slapdash and short-breathed and rushed.
Although commitments to family, work and community are unavoidable, not making space for myself to experience quietness, to ‘check in’ is a kind of spiritual laziness. We use ‘busy’ as an excuse, but busy doesn’t mean important, it just means over-committed, over-stimulated and overly-distracted. This is to some extent the result of choices – it’s good to constantly examine those choices and find ways to make quiet space.
This weekend I am going to mindfully clean, cook, knit and enjoy some quiet.
Here is what I wish for, for me and for you this weekend:
Helen Lehndorf 
Amen. Do Less! This is still my mantra, and I’ve recently come across some encouraging and thought-provoking writing on the subject. May I recommend Enough, by John Naish; In praise of slowness, by Carl Honore; and in case you haven’t seen it, Tim Kreider’s excellent essay in the New Yorker, ‘The Busy Trap’ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/
And now I am going to go and dig up all my rose bushes and plant low-maintenance leucadendrons. Roses are way too much work, and require too many toxic chemicals.
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I was going to say ‘amen’ too. It must be Sunday, Thanks, Helen.
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Thanks for the reading suggestions, Heather – they all sound great! I will check them out.
Thank YOU, Penelope, for stopping by. x
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