It’s not
that I’m any less “type A” than usual. It’s just here of late (call it age;
call it life) I’ve come to realize and even accept that the more meaningful moments in life happen in between
the items on my list and very often in spite of them. Certain
things may take me away from my “to do’s” and when they do, I now stop and take
note, as I’ve come to realize that the things that take me off point usually come with some sort of gift.
Case in
point: today’s list included several bills to pay…several errands to run.
Nowhere on the list was “cry with a girl on her way to chemo who’s missing her
daddy” or “stop to love on Rosey’s pups that don’t live here
anymore” …
In other
words, it’s the things that don’t make the list that make for life. Trick is,
to forego the list sometimes to make time and space for those things to happen.
Metaphysicians
like Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer both refer the “gap between our thoughts”
which, (by their definition) is where God resides. By their definition (which I
tend to think true), our brains think thoughts for a living, the same way our
hearts pump blood or our kidneys filter toxins. It’s the job of our brains (as
the organ in our head) to think things, but it’s what’s in between our thoughts
that let us know that we are not our thoughts but instead, we are the observer
of these things we’re thinking.
It’s very
easy to identify with our thoughts and assume our thoughts are who we are. Likewise,
it’s easy to identify with our lists of “to do’s” thinking this is what makes
for a life.
Much as I
love a totally checked off list, I’ve never found my list to fulfill me as a
person. Instead, I’ve come to discover that my greatest joys in life never come
from something listed then checked off, but from something never intentionally
put on the list in the first place that makes its way into my day, bringing
with it some unique gift or insight that I otherwise could not take credit for
having created.
I’m pretty
certain my drive to make a list every morning will be with me always. No longer
do I fight it. To the contrary, thanks to lists I get a lot done. But I have
learned to forgive myself when something not on the list makes its way into my
day and takes me off point. There are moments in every day when going strictly
by the list would take me down a notch and have me missing some of life’s most
precious gifts.
Seldom (if ever) does “meaningful” happen
from my list. More times than not, the meaningful moments of my day happen in
spite of it.
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