How do you spend your time? Is the busyness of life eating away your hours, leaving you with nothing but crumbs?
Until a few years ago, mine was. I got up each day, showered, drank coffee, dashed off to work, spent most of my daylight hours there, then dashed home, made dinner, did some laundry, cleaned something-or-another, paid some bills, brushed my teeth, fell into exhausted but troubled sleep, then got up and repeated the same process the next day. Whole weeks would slip by and I could not name even one thing that I did that I enjoyed. But even more troubling was that I had done nothing that would outlast me. None of my crazy busyness was doing anything to enrich my life or the lives of those I care about. I was just “putting out fires”. I would die wearing clean underwear and with no outstanding bills, but that was about it. Something had to give. Something was going to have to go undone so that I wouldn’t come undone. That’s when I sat down and decided what would get my attention, and what would have to wait. I developed a plan of Intentional Disregard.
I have intentionally chosen not to attend social functions that I am not interested in. No more school events, church socials, block parties, business cocktail parties or political rallies unless they hold great interest for me. I also have no enthusiasm for mopping floors, dusting bookshelves or scrubbing toilets, so I have arranged to have someone else do that for me. I don’t like to talk on the phone, so I don’t do it any more often or for any longer than I have to. When the phone rings at my house, it is as likely to get ignored as it is to get answered; people who know me also know enough to leave me a message. If I start a book and it doesn’t captivate me, I stop reading it, and I don’t watch movies whose topics don’t interest me, not matter how great the reviews are. I am intentionally disregarding things that have little intrinsic value to me. The space that they used to fill on my schedule has been replaced by chats with my husband over a glass of wine, reading books that interest me, writing about the things that matter most to me, and spending time with my friends and family.
I remember reading once about a survey taken of individuals over the age of ninety-five in which they were asked if they had their lives to live over again, what they would do differently. The three most commonly offered answers were these:
- I would spend more time thinking and reflecting
- I would be more willing to take risks
- I would focus more on things that will outlive me
How many of these things are showing up on your “to-do” list today?
If you were to develop your own plan of Intentional Disregard, it would probably look very different than mine. The things that matter most to you, and the things that you can afford to disregard, are exclusive to you. No one else can, or should, define them for you. But I feel certain that there are things in your life that you could disregard today and be all the richer for having done so. You have enough heart and enough intelligence to know what those things are. So, why not spend a few minutes today developing your own plan of Intentional Disregard?
3 comments:
Just checking to see if a comment comes through your new internet set-up.
I was surprised a survey for those over ninety five actually exists. How many of "them" do you suppose can remember anything ?
I have been fortunate enough to live my life with Intentional Disregard with the exception of three and a half years during WW2. jwk
This is a great post and something we should all spend a bit more time doing. For myself, I would just like to go ahead and put it out there that if I ever say,"I think I'll go back to graduate school," someone should knock me unconscious right then and there. Life is too short to spend time on things that wear us down, and the pursuit of professional roles and titles that don't enrich our lives just isn't worth it (not to mention Chris's post on the debt associated with achieving these titles!). If we all spent more time commending one another for the balance we achieved in our lives rather than our litany of so-called "accomplishments," we'd all be in a better place.
Hi, MRM. Sorry to hear that graduate school has got you down. Maybe my new post on "Choose Your Own Adventure" will give you some ideas on how you might reinterpret this experience.
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