I read this quote for the first time in college and I loved it. Because it validated my daydreaming personality. Because it gave me the permission to sit on the side, pretending to study, while my mind flew all over the world. And just because the quote was on a wall poster, it had to be right, right?
This is the problem, though. I am a big time dreamer, but not a doer. I am actually a reader and an observer. I read a lot, anything and everything about travel, philosophy, cooking, style and beauty, movies, music, gardening, personal finance, health, happiness. Any subject.
And I observe other people try, and then achieve their goals. Somebody will say they’ll lose 20 pounds this year and I see them after 6 months all fit and smart. Or I will go on blogs where people will do challenges of painting a picture a day, or cooking with a particular ingredient, or learning a particular tune on the keyboard.
And this is where I am:
We bought a keyboard the year I got interested in piano, but after six months, I gave up, its gathering dust somewhere.
I have folders of recipes I got from magazines which are languishing somewhere in the guest room closet. My iPad is full of recipes I have favorited from different blogs, meaning to try one day.
I have one corner of the landing with a shelf with all my painting paraphernalia, which I will use one day to paint a masterpiece.
My knitting supplies are in one corner of the house, I started a sweater set for a niece six months ago, just managed to knit one side so far.
So what’s up? Why can I not get anything done? It’s not that I lose interest, no, I am still very much interested in finishing up the sweater or learning how to sketch, but, where is the time??
Laura Vanderkam told us we have more time than we think in her book, 168 Hours. She counted the number of hours in a week, gave us generous time to sleep and work and commute and cook and exercise etc and still came up with at least 20-30 hours for all the things we dream of doing. But to follow the book’s suggestions, one has to monitor every minute of the day and to fill up those 15 min blocks of time between tasks- the transitions.
I have enough time. I think. I don’t have pets, my children are older, my job is not hectic, I cook simple. And it is not as if I don’t have at least one project going on-I am learning Italian with the Duolingo app., I garden too-this morning I spent a delightful 2 hours in the garden. And now this blog, which does take up some time.
My worry is, I hope I am not frittering away my time, that I am as productive as any other person in my position is, that at the end of life I don’t regret not doing all that I wanted to do. So I fill my days with all the right things one is supposed to do- decluttering, learning, experiencing, reading etc.
But I feel rushed. I feel as if I have to prove something to the world, that I have been given this wonderful life, and I better squeeze all the juice out of it.
And then I remember some lines from this poem by W. H. Davies:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
The poem reminds us to just relax and slow down. Nature is Beauty, and we should learn to admire it. This is what resonates with me. Productivity is great if that is what one wants to do. But the dreamers have a place in this world too.
Life goes in phases. The last 25-30 years went by in a blur-with the job and kids and building a life. Now I feel I am in a phase where I want to sit back and just savor the creation. Like a squirrel, which spent the summer collecting the nuts, and then it stops and starts working on them, tasting, eating, relaxing. At least that’s what I think squirrels do, lol!
I want to find that sweet balance between productivity and leisure. Between the dreaming and the doing. And I need a block of time to work on my projects; not the 15 minutes here and there between other tasks; to actually see progress. The most difficult is the first step-I remember-I just started this blog which I had been writing in my mind for almost a year before. And the second most difficult thing is to sustain it.
I will keep a time log this week and see if I can come up with a solid block of time for my projects. So I don’t keep rushing along, stealing time from this task or that, and accomplishing nothing in the end.
Do you have any special projects going on? How do you find the time to fit those in your daily schedule? Share with me, please!
See, I learnt this today- I was posting the pictures to the blog and then trying to edit them. I learnt to edit them first and then post onto the blog. Don’t laugh, I am still learning!