I can’t remember where I first heard or read this advice. But I have been thinking about it quite a bit recently as I try to get to grips with rebuilding my life post-chemo.
It’s so easy to feel like there is never time or energy to accomplish everything.
And I have felt how much energy levels can make a difference on what gets done in our lives.
But in anther sense time is the greta equaliser. We all have 24 hours in a day, and there is great power in being intentional about how we spend them.
How we spend our time is how we spend our lives.
This is true for what we spend our time doing. These tasks gradually come to make up the tapestry of a life.
Spend most time sitting on the couch? Practicing piano? Adventuring across the world? Whittling spoons? Whatever you choose, it will show.
But I find it’s easy to forget that this is also true of how we spend our time.
Do you spend most of your time enjoying yourself? Stressed out? Thinking about money? Worrying about other people?
That is how you will have spent your life.
Over the weekend, we had one of those days where everything went wrong. We were trying to do things in a hurry. We were exhausted.
We working on something that we were technically excited about: continuing to settle into our new home. But our approach didn’t feel full of excitement.
When we took a brief moment to reconnect (i.e. collapse together in exhaustion on the sofa), it was clear things had gone off the rails.
We asked ourselves:
Why aren’t we having fun?
What is the point if we’re not?
Following on from that…
What energy will the space have if we unpack with frustration under a sense of time pressure?
Would things feel differently if we made it a point to enjoy the process (even if it took a little bit longer)?
Emotionally, we switched gears. We brought in the humour. We brought in the fun.
Our tasks didn’t change, but the experience felt entirely different.
All it needed was to take a moment to remind ourselves of what truly feels important.
Today, take a moment to think about what you want your life to be made of.
When you look back, what activities do you want to have filled your days?
But perhaps more importantly, how do you want your life to feel? What energy and perspective do you want to have brought to these tasks?
Even when it is not in your power to choose the tasks that life demands, you can still choose the mindset you bring to them.
What do you choose today?
Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash