Well, it's 9:00 at night. It's the first time I've stopped "doing" something since I woke up at 7am. Between the 2 mile run, chiropractor appointment, making and eating meals, work, packing a handful of boxes in preparation for my move in a little over a month and a half (I figure if I just do a little a day it won't make me want to die the two weeks leading up to my wedding) and homework, I haven't stopped moving. I have checked almost everything off my to do list. I have been the utter embodiment of productivity!
And yet...I feel utterly useless, unproductive, wasteful and anxious about all the things I have yet to do.
Monday was a hard day. I skimmed over 200 pages in a book and wrote a paper on it as well as accomplished a handful of other things. This pace made me feel an intense anxiety rising up within the core of my being for fear that I might not get it done and if it took an extra day something else later in the week surely wouldn't get done at all. My life and homework are planned out to the millisecond most days and I wonder why it's so hard to breath and why I fail to enjoy the beautiful days God is putting before me.
Immediately after finishing this large assignment I picked up the next book in the stack and dove in determined to read at least 20 pages before my eyes failed me and refused to stay open. I had to laugh when I actually read the title, "Simpler Living, Compassionate Life." My life isn't exactly simple, neither is there much room for it. And compassion...although something I pride myself on is harder and harder to find as of late. I keep telling myself, "You just have to make it through the semester and the wedding and the move and things will slow down." But will they really? I have pushed myself to a pace that makes me bemoan my life, irritable toward those I love, anxious to get from one thing to the next so that "it all gets done," there is no place, space or time for enjoyment. It is a painful and depressing state of existence. And amidst these anxieties and frustrations of my life and my productivity I read "Cultural idols such as materialism, economic growth, and productivity have led us astray." (13)
Completely ignoring this sentence despite its jumping off the page and smacking me in the face, I pushed on and entered into an essay on mindfulness and the beauty and importance of being mindful in every moment as best we can and still I trudged on as my mind became lethargic and my eyes refused to focus. I came next to a section on time in which I read "So much of our time is spent in ways that kill our spirit, our capacity to enjoy the moment, to experience the depth of a moment." (39) And still I continued coming to an essay on space. In this section I read a sentence that I finally allowed to sink in. "We know we need rest, but we can no longer see the value of rest as an end in itself; it is only worthwhile if it helps us recharge our batteries so we can be even more efficient in the next period of productivity." (42) Needless to say, I put down the book and attempted to enjoy those last few moments before sleep found me. I realized that I NEED what this book has to offer and I will not be rushed through it because of a class deadline. If it does not get finished in time I will live because I will actually be living and beginning the process of simplifying my life.
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