As I sit this morning and sort through the things I need to do (I still don’t have a routine of comfort) I am preoccupied with broken stuff. Stuff around a 27 year old house, original house stuff that has lived a good long life, stuff we’ve been patching together through the wonders of “Service Plus”, stuff that is nearing the point of “time for new”. The AC iced up the other day, the dishwasher doesn’t hold water, the release valve on the water heater is leaking and now a valve on my well water pressure tank is leaking. It is great to has service plans, some home maintenance skills, and the resources (ie: credit) to replace if necessary to deal with the inevitable broken stuff around a home, but I don’t have my new routine down yet, and HEY! I like Routine!!!! (except when I don’t!).
Well, it will all get done, and you know what? It doesn’t all have to get done yesterday, or even today, or even tomorrow. We all need to practice slowing down.
Right now I’m reading “the not so big life” by Sarah Susanka.
A paragraph on page 71 is one I relate to:
In addressing the issue, I’ve also uncovered one of my underlying beliefs. I’ve been conditioned to believe since childhood, that an effective person takes care of problems as soon as they arise. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. But it does have unintended consequences, the most obvious of which is that if you’re always attending to problems that arise, you get around to what really matters to you only after you’ve taken care of everything else.
I too, am not sure this is a bad thing, especially for those of us in the public safety professions where taking care of problems is what matters to us. But it is good to look at how we spend our time, and sometimes things can wait. We won’t need the AC the rest of the week, washing dishes by hand isn’t so bad, the bucket under the water heater release valve isn’t filling…..but I got a call into the well guy, we need that leak fixed sooner than later.
So today, take a few minutes to slow down. Stop and see if how you are spending your time is how you want or need to be spending your time.
