Every time I go on a trip, I feel a bit like the Looney Toons Tasmanian Devil, spinning wildly all over the house, kicking up dust as I madly try to tie up loose ends before I leave.
Every time, I am confronted with the reality that the to-do list that I thought was totally reasonable is actually superhuman, and alas, I am (still) merely human.
Every time, I am forced to do a sort of “to-do list triage,” dropping balls that aren’t absolutely essential in order to get to the stuff that is.
Today I leave for a grand East Coast adventure, and I’m forced to admit that nothing has changed. The great plans to preschedule blog posts and newsletters, and to create and preschedule daily artquotes for the two weeks while I’m away are simply not going to happen.
This is where I get to practice my Golden Formula: Self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good.
Trying to do everything on my superhuman to-do list stresses me the heck out. Trying to squeeze in work while I’m on my vacation and want to be connecting with people I care about stresses me out, too.
So I acknowledge that it’s time to let go. The world will not end if I post nothing for a couple of weeks. And my two weeks away will be a lot more fun and less stressful if I let it be the vacation I planned, and don’t try to squeeze in work.
Letting go is hard for me. I hate letting go. But what I notice is that when I do, not only does life go on, but often it gets noticeably gentler, too.
And gentleness is a good thing for me to cultivate — in my life, and toward myself.
I suspect I’m not the only one who could benefit from practicing gentleness and letting go. (Hint, hint…)
Have a great couple of weeks!
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
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Let go and enjoy yourself, seems like a good thing to add to the “to do” list. 😉
I agree, I am trying to do too much also. Your blogs are great, in fact the only one I always like to read, so well worth waiting for the next one! Go have a good time!
Human indeed, feet of clay and heart of gold Melissa. Remember our previous exchange:
“Roshi, I’ve fallen on the path!”
“Good, good, that’s excellent! Now you can get up.”
“Excellent!? How can falling be excellent!?”
“We all fall, we all get up – it’s all good.”
“But Roshi, what if I fall again??!”
“Get up again. Never fall down without getting up! Bad habit!”
Lincoln
I can totally relate! Enjoy your nephew and see you soon!
Oh enjoy your time!! We give you permission to take a break and do some wandering and adventuring and rebalancing! 🙂
I’d like to hear what happens on the other side of your break. Bc, I think I also suffer from super-human-itis… Triage. I like that word. Last night I was listening to the accidental creative podcasts while coloring (my way of trying to slow it all down, granted i was still listening to “work/dream-related podcasts), and one of the little episodes was on having checkpoints in place to reassess our expectations and balance of All The Things. So, maybe the universe is talking to me right now. Maybe I need to do some triaging and reassess things.