If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was I day I think—I hope—I turned a corner in my character. You see, since screening the finale of the second season of Gatiss & Moffatt’s Sherlock this past Saturday, entitled “The Reichenbach Fall” (and probably a good bit before then), I had been obsessing over the show: obsessing about its plot, obsessing about its characters, obsessing about its actors, and obsessing about its writers. I was obsessing about my decision to stop watching it because of my obsession.
I needed to be rescued from all this.
And it’s more than Sherlock: In recent months, I have spent far too much time and attention setting up operating systems, selecting an iPhone case, and other such minutiae. I prioritize trivialities. And it robs me of life (and steals from DiamondBack).
We have overcome perfectionism. We have overcome stoniness. We have overcome self-distraction at work. We have overcome religious doubt. (All of the above are still works in progress, but they are works well on their way with clear paths to completion.) Perhaps now we can take on obsessiveness and the resulting misprioritization.
Deliberation, yes: You do that about problems and decisions. Cogitation, yes: You do that about profundities. Obsession, no: You do that, by definition, with things you ought not to. And I know what it feels like.
If you’re going to obsess about anything, do it about giving yourself for the benefit of other people.
Why do I assign standing priorities to all tasks in my to-do list, contra David “GTD” Allen’s advice? Because otherwise I would always choose that which is most easily checked off rather than what is most important.
I thought of a good rule of thumb: I should set aside dinnertime to the kids’ bedtime not only as unstructured leisure time, but also as “spend as much time outside as possible” time.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was a day I had intended to go hear Paul McCartney play at the Bryce Jordan Center—his first and probably last concert in State College, PA—but had neither found someone to go buy scalped tickets with (Carla was at a Council meeting) nor communicated well with the babysitter, Molly Hunter, who wasn’t going to have a ride home. Top that off with a $475 bicycle maintenance bill earlier that day, and you get me canceling with the babysitter at 6:30 p.m. It helps that I’ve never cared much for arena concerts and that the babysitter had four big exams happening all the next day.
Such is life when you prioritize: Some things go neglected. And very often they are the things that should go neglected.
I wake up almost every morning these days with a shot of anxiety running through my middle. My inkling is that it stems from always doing and never resting. Is that it?
Carla says when she feels that way, she takes it as a prompt to pray.
Carla: Are you a thinker or a feeler? Scott: Well, the facile response would be: duh, I’m a thinker. But I tend to think I’m actually a feeler who is articulate. Just not about feelings.
stop trying to queue up the next day’s tasks to fit into the time available to me and instead just keep a running list, believing that this will make it less likely that I obsess over my task list,
proceed through my task list in the order I present it to my self, which will often mean that praying is the first thing I do,
eat less and mostly greens for lunch,
renew my commitment to eating no more than one helping at dinner, and
stop fasting on Mondays and instead skip breakfast on Sundays.
I value browsing Twitter, but doing it during usual bathroom time first thing in the morning prevents me from getting outside and taking a walk with You, God. So I will save it for a break from my DiamondBack work instead.
If I’m not careful, I’m going to petrify a habit of mine that has developed in the past few weeks and become such a temptation as to displace the role seeking online infotainment or titillation has at times played in my life: reading theological articles on the Internet during the workday. If I allow this habit to solidify, it will have two detrimental effects: I will lose my job, and I will lose my faith.
I could either let the unanswerable theological questions win and spend the next five to ten years in likely miserable reorganization of my entire thought life, or I could settle for mystery.
This one shouldn’t be so hard. When did intellectual coherence become so important to me?
It is good to remember, especially with the specter of doubt still haunting my soul, that cogitation is terribly inefficient after bedtime. When tempted to mull in bed, don’t.
Have a philosophical problem? You’re not going to solve it lying in bed. So don’t try. Stuff it and go to sleep.
Not that I experienced this last night or anytime recently. But I might again someday soon.
It’s too late to journal this in any detail, but suffice it to say for now that I’ve embraced that suffering and death is a part of everyone’s life. That’ll make me less fearful of death myself, less fearful for what my children will think in the wake of deaths and suffering around them, and more willing to take the risk of becoming a foster dad. Desiring God’s take on Romans 8 helps here. As does the whole Bible, which never once tells the saints they won’t suffer. It assumes suffering, and it assumes it as something to fight against, but also a backwards blessing as well, capable of creating much good character in someone.
This realization is a prayer answer to this morning’s prayer.
The most significant thing today, other than the pumpkin carving all four of did in the kitchen while listening to a Béla Fleck collab folk album, photos of which I’m sure will be taken, is that I am concerned, although not to the point of taking any action, that I am overly distracted from Your kingdom, Lord, by nifty information tools. Today I updated f.lux, set up Day One to have two journal files, one for my journal and one for the record of days, relatedly cleared my Dropbox account, and got invited by the folks who build Remember the Milk to test out their upcoming overhaul. I got mildly excited about each. Is that OK?
Brandon had us take a Five Love Languages (In The Workplace) test today. My primary language “for feeling appreciated in the work setting is by having others communicate their appreciation for him verbally…in addition, [I] actually [have] two secondary languages of appreciation. One way that he receives encouragement and is motivated is by spending quality time with those he values…an additional way that Scott receives encouragement and is motivated is by receiving gifts…Scott’s lowest language for feeling appreciated in the work setting is by having others help him with projects he is working on. As a result, attempts to motivate or encourage Scott by doing tasks for him will generally not be that effective.”
Another Saturday, another end-of-day ambivalence about how I spent my time: Today is the kind in which I wish I spent more time accomplishing things and less time socializing. Often it is the reverse.
New protocol: Whenever I lend something, I will note that I have done so as a task to get it back, not in a standalone list of things lent, which never gets looked at. Similar thing for borrowed items.
I spent the entire afternoon torpid. I mean, I took a nap on a picnic tabletop today during a church visit to Talleyrand Park. What is it about Sundays? Is this a lethargy I can end by flipping a switch in my brain? Tea this afternoon didn’t help.
The best solution is probably to just go ahead and take the nap.
