What is really worth doing
Our days are filled with so many important things, so many priorities. From the moment we get up, our days, and our thoughts, are filled with things that need to get done.
If our life is a forest of accomplishments, then the trees are all the things we do and plan to do. It is a dense forest with very little rhyme or reason as to what is planted, where it is planted and when its planted. That is because we let our lives just gather momentum, and we do more of the same; plant more trees every day.
More and more, as I look at my forest of actions, I get this desire to manage my forest a bit better. I want to think more deliberately as to what trees I plant, what actions I take, what is important for me to achieve. Which are the really important actions? What really matters?
Those aren't easy questions to answer. We go through our lives and pretty much everything seems important; or at the very least, necessary.
And time changes those priorities, those necessities.
But the more we reflect on what is really important, the more we realize that our days are too full, too busy for us to pursue the things that we realize really matter to us. And the only way to start pursuing those things is to step back, make time to reflect and make more time for those things that we realize truly matter...now.
This is a discussion I have with many trusted friends and colleagues and loved ones and we all struggle with how we spend our time, with how our days take control of us. And when we start to reflect on what really matters, when we start to look within ourselves with an awareness that comes from looking inward - we find that the greatest joy, the greatest purpose comes not with what we achieve for ourselves, but what we achieve for others - the people we love, the people we feel accountable to, and the social ills and inequities we are responsible towards - the disenfanchised, the environment.
Lewis Carroll said it so aptly:
"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."
If our life is a forest of accomplishments, then the trees are all the things we do and plan to do. It is a dense forest with very little rhyme or reason as to what is planted, where it is planted and when its planted. That is because we let our lives just gather momentum, and we do more of the same; plant more trees every day.
More and more, as I look at my forest of actions, I get this desire to manage my forest a bit better. I want to think more deliberately as to what trees I plant, what actions I take, what is important for me to achieve. Which are the really important actions? What really matters?
Those aren't easy questions to answer. We go through our lives and pretty much everything seems important; or at the very least, necessary.
And time changes those priorities, those necessities.
But the more we reflect on what is really important, the more we realize that our days are too full, too busy for us to pursue the things that we realize really matter to us. And the only way to start pursuing those things is to step back, make time to reflect and make more time for those things that we realize truly matter...now.
This is a discussion I have with many trusted friends and colleagues and loved ones and we all struggle with how we spend our time, with how our days take control of us. And when we start to reflect on what really matters, when we start to look within ourselves with an awareness that comes from looking inward - we find that the greatest joy, the greatest purpose comes not with what we achieve for ourselves, but what we achieve for others - the people we love, the people we feel accountable to, and the social ills and inequities we are responsible towards - the disenfanchised, the environment.
Lewis Carroll said it so aptly:
"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."
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