Lately I’ve come to see much more clearly the myth of my calendar: the myth that there’s a pinnacle of time management that will make everything OK.
It turns out that there isn’t.
The pieces that I’m trying to fit into my day – the articles I am and am not reading; the meetings I am and am not taking; the talks I am and am not giving – are but a tiny, arbitrary swath of the everything that’s out there that I could be doing that might be relevant and useful.
It’s comforting to think that we’re constrained by all the things we’ve already signed up for, when in reality what constrains us is our unwillingness to let people down in service of our higher purpose.
This is why we can look at people who have learned Mandarin in three months, become world-class tango dancers, or completed the Ironman and say, “Sure, they can do that, but that’s because they have the freedom to spend their time that way.”
This is also why we talk about the changes we’d like to make aspirationally, even wistfully: “Someday [when I’m a perfect person] I’m going to…..” […speak up more in meetings. …start working on that long-term project without anyone’s permission. …sleep enough every night…be courageous…stand up to my boss…learn to code.] It’s just another way of hiding, since we know that we’ll never be that perfect person.
The real issue is our unwillingness to let people down, our unwillingness to bear the brunt of the ensuing disappointment from people we like and respect in service of something more important.
One way to start a new conversation is to ask ourselves: what would make the way we’re currently behaving intolerable to us? What shift would have to happen to make the things we’d like to ‘someday’ become the things we have to do today? What would have to change so that we have no choice but to start doing the work that WE have, until now, chosen not to do?
The first person we have to be willing to break an old contract with is ourselves.
Damn. Spot on.
🙂
Well said in a busy world, Sasha. I especially like your closing line! In my experience self-imposed expectations and resulting rigid patterns can wrap themselves around us and hold us in a singular pattern to the detriment of our learning and dreams. Additionally, I’ve learned that the fear of bearing the brunt of others’ disappoint is sometimes simply a projection onto others. It surprises and delights me that people can often be so wonderfully human — by that I mean gracefully and even enthusiastically accepting one’s heartfelt choices for change, even if it precipitates a bit of immediate inconvenience or reshuffling.
Reblogged this on Truth Troubles: Why people hate the truths' of the real world.