Regrouping

I learned something through a friend’s experience:  I need to slow down my life.

Why do I need to slow down?

Because I’m not meeting personal goals anymore by booking myself up so much that I can’t take time for more than a minute of programming my future.  My kid takes a certain amount of required energy and involvement, which I don’t begrudge him at all; but the other obligations are taking too much mental time away from the things I do as part of being me.  I’m not being selfish here but stating that I’m being foolish with my energy.

We all have one resource which limited:  Time.

I know that living freely means to some people that we don’t organize, set boundaries or grant time to our own personal projects, but I think freedom means programming.

I don’t have time to record music anymore, write songs or just work on stuff at home because I book myself up with so many other obligations and distractions that I don’t have energy left for any of my passions.  It has begun to feel hopeless, though I know it isn’t.  Intellectually, I know that I’m overworked in some areas and far too open to other people’s needs to meet them.  There is only so much one can do to help others in the end because we all have merely two arms, legs and one body to accomplish the day.  We don’t have the luxury of omnipresence, omnipotence or the ability to multi-task efficiently enough to do it all with excellence.  Therefore we need to program our time according to our physical, psychological and spiritual boundaries.

I have begun to discover my own boundaries for a healthy life.  I don’t have the ability to go out too much or overbook myself.  When someone comes into my life too much too fast, I get overwhelmed and confused.  It also makes me want to run and hide somewhere.  But it isn’t their fault or for the reason that I don’t want them in my life, I merely need to take bitesized junks out of exposure to them; building up my endurance for their company in order that I can take a full time commitment.  I’m not finding fault with myself either, for this is a learning issue.  I’ve never realized the truth of this (outside intellectual acknowledgement and knowing it from counseling) until today.  I discovered something about myself I’ve neglected, which led me to conclude that I have been inconsiderate of others as well in this all important area.

I like playing open mics and coffee houses, so I need to program in practice time for this to happen once or twice a month until Jesse is older.  But because I need to do this performance gig, I have to let something else go and that’s really hard for me.

This subject will be an ongoing discussion for a while until I discover the balance–or it might go on indefinitely, since I doubt I will arrive at balance in short order.  In any case, I’m gonna’ work on my programming with more intentional effort, knowing why now.

Tags: balanced living, down time, organizing, passions, regrouping