Life can be very much like a puzzle. There are all these things that need to get done, that we want to get done, that we should get done, and of course there are the things we call our real life which is the reason we’re doing all these things, but somehow all the things get in the way of the real life so we never really have it. So the doing of things becomes our real life wherein we, at some point, have regrets and I feel like this is heading towards a night of sitting and listening to a less than average lounge singer play the “What could have been.” 😛
Sometimes it’s not so much our to do list running our life as much as how we’re implementing it. We try to fit meditation into the puzzle and it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. Nor does have quiet reflection time in the morning, or yoga in the evening or down time on the weekends, etc. The things that need to get done overwhelm these, seemingly and they get shoved to the side. But this comes in part because of how we’re attempting to implement them. It’s hard to wedge in quiet reflection in the morning when the rest of the morning is dragging yourself out of bed, putting food of some kind (nutritional or not) into your system. Add caffeine, get dressed, commute if necessary, all the while thinking about all the things to do at work. Any quiet time is taking up with the thinking and the rushing and like trying to swim against a rip current in the ocean, you’re not only not getting to quiet reflection any time fast, you’re losing ground.
This doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it just means that how we’re implementing things, the shape of the puzzle piece, isn’t working. So lets reconfigure. First, the problems at work aren’t going anywhere. They are pretty much the same as they were when you left, probably haven’t been touched by anyone else because no one else wants to take on more work and you’ve already thought about them after leaving and through the evening and possibly before going to bed or while in bed so enough with the thinking. Relegate the “to do before getting into work” list, if it’s necessary, to the night before and resolutely ignore it until a few minutes before leaving for work. So with that out of the way what you have is eating and personal hygiene with caffeine to take care of. So here’s a radical thought…implement quiet reflection time as part of this routine. Be quietly reflective while eating, while having tea/coffee, while getting ready for the day. Allow your brain to soak into the peace and bliss of meditation while taking care of yourself, all of which gets you out the door and on to work. Same content, different implementation.
Yes, sometimes work issues will intrude on your morning. In return, sometimes your morning should intrude into your work like having quiet reflection on break or at lunch. It’s not a bad thing to have quiet time at lunch if you can get it. So just this adjustment in how creates a ton of space in life for the self and nothing has been sacrificed, other than our vision of what quiet reflection looks like. Other things to try is stopping off somewhere between work and home which is meditational whether that’s a scenic view, a local temple, a church, synagogue, part, etc. Do the meditation before you get home and are swamped with an entire new “todo” list. Have kids and can’t figure out how to fit in workout time around their schedule? Put it on their schedule and take them with you. Take up a sport they enjoy and practice with them. Whether you call this compromise or life hacking or being flexible, the outcome is the same. You get what you want, your life improves in numerous ways, and the only thing lost is your vision of how things “should work.”