I’m living my life against the grain my heart. I’m hoping this realization is God answering my prayer that I do only what I see Him doing, that that’s all I want to do.
Overall, I’m spending too much time at my “helm,” that is, my computer workstation, thinking that the key to well-lived life resides somewhere in Remember the Milk, and not enough time resting and relating.
In my crosshairs as I turn toward changing my life are:
counting beans (i.e., doing the monthly accounting),
exercising on days when I climb, and
time in my office in front of my computer doing things other than DiamondBack work.
Along those lines, here is what I propose:
I spend no more than one hour attempting to accomplish private, at-my-workstation tasks. I set a timer to facilitate keeping to that limit.
For exercise, I think all that I’m going to try for now is to (1) do my RDLs and perhaps squats at Climb Nittany when I have the opportunity and (2) be willing to shorten the routine on those same days.
If you find yourself upset about your inability to connect with your family and their penchant for gluing glowing rectangles to their hands or laps, don’t try to pry them away. Instead, charm them away by doing something with all your might à la the ceiling tiles in the Upper Room. It can something serious, something silly, something musical, something mundane, it can be something that you think will attract them or something that you think won’t. Just do it with all your might. Dancing. For the glory of the Lord. They’ll join you.
The important part for me in leisure is a deliberate decision to engage and stay engaged. “…do it with all your might…” Remember the lesson of the ceiling at the Upper Room.
When you’re in a place, do the things the place was made for. For instance, if you’re at a roller rink, go skating; don’t try to get things done on your computer, even if you can. If you’re at Highland Regional Park in Johnstown for Sullivan’s bike race, do bike race or park things; don’t try to get things done on your computer.
On my walk last night I tried to work out with God why I’ve been so unhappy this week. Toward the end of a mildly frustrating, brassy-heaven walk, I heard “Coffee!” At first, I thought this was referring to my actual intake of the decaf I recently secure via Jen Bean via Josh Potter from Standing Stone: Perhaps the intake of some other chemical from the coffee was depressing me. But after reentering the house, it occurred to me that wasn’t it at all. This decaf coffee was a great example of me treating something as a must-do that clearly is not. So here was the answer: I have been unhappy because I have been treating as musts things that are not.
Damn it. Never book a flight (or any scheduled transportation) such that you’ll have to wake up earlier than usual to catch it. It is a guarantee that you will be forced to pull an all-nighter by subconscious nerves.
On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
In order for me to maximally productive at work, I have to be cutthroat with all non-work items. I have to forcefully box out distraction, daydreaming, and other (non-work) people and their agendas.
But that’s no way to live your home life!
Love in one’s home life means primarily the enjoyment of relationship with those around you and acting for others’ good by relating and enjoying and resting with them. Work is necessary in home life—and indeed, even for love’s sake it is necessary—but it isn’t primary. It serves the primary purpose of enjoyment. And besides, home life flows like water, it’s stochastic, it’s unpredictable, it’s got a bunch of other people and animals and neighbors and friends that can’t be controlled like one’s own attention can be controlled.
So I need to have two mindsets:
At home, I will not abandon my getting-things-done agendas, which are after all mostly built on love, but I will let the direct relational and enjoyment modes of love take precedence. I will go with the flow comprised of everybody else’s wishes and needs (and my own, for that matter—let’s not forget that rest and occasionally following one’s whim is important).
At work, since love in one’s job life is indeed primarily about productivity for the sake of the “family farm”—although not entirely (think of the joys of turning my attention 100% to others when they interrupt me!)—I will continue to hone that blade.
Telling someone they “have been” something is more empowering a way of truth-telling than telling them they “are” something. It leaves the future open for change.
I must learn how to recognize when it is time to take a break. It is a combination of the demands of my soul and the demands of the world around me. At some crossover point the demands of my soul win.
I enjoyed today how although I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to bring anything to church, at the last minute as we approached our taking of the wine and bread, I thought of “What A Friend I’ve Found” by Delirious?, which I had just run through with Carla, the Rookes, and Ben last weekend on a whim. I need to remember not to worry so much. Just follow my whim. Especially with music making. I ought not make music simply because I have a voice for it. I ought to make music when it is in the service of love only. Is love the post hoc pretext that covers a selfish ambition for praise or usefulness? Or is love the actual, prompting reason I’m doing the singing? Let it always be the latter.
“The dark paradox, then, is this: the more we seek to alleviate our loneliness through digital connectivity, the more lonely we will feel. Along the way, we will forsake solitude as a matter of course. Curiously, it may not even be loneliness as a desire for companionship that the design of social media fosters in us. Rather, it is a counterfeit longing that is generated: for stimulation rather than companionship. In the end, we will be left with the most profound loneliness: perpetually feeling a need for connection that we cannot satisfy and finding that we have not even our own company. To recap: no abiding sense of companionship, no solitude, no place for thought.”
Is it possible that the anxiety that arises in me when I read the opinions of folks on the Internet about God arises because I overestimate other people’s reasonability?
minimal workday appointments for household business,
no more than four midevening engagements, including no more than one that pulls me away from the children,
no more than one late-evening appointment (e.g., movie night, phone conversation) if I have more than one project going, but up to three such appointments when I am keeping to my one-project-at-a-time limit,
anything I care to Saturday & Sunday before dinner, and
anything appealing that I care to schedule that presents itself same day.
In a given month, I will schedule no more than two travel weekends, whose evenings count toward the midevening engagement constraint.
Additionally, I will not forget the Sabbath.
Finally, to stick to all the above, I will become well-rehearsed in saying, “Let me get back to you.”
It’s time to build house, home, and family. It’s time to say no to other stuff. It’s time to bang out a deer or two, bang out a website for the Houserville Community Garden, then one for Mike, then one for church. It’s not time to travel. It’s not time to sing out. It’s time to prepare to be foster parents again.