It would be pointless for me to once again lament the speediness with which this week has passed. I bet if I went back to my blog over the past several Thursdays I would find the same sentiment expressed week after week: where did the week go? I could easily ask the same question about where June has gone and, as we approach the midpoint of the year, where 2012 has gone. We are six months away from the end of the Mayan calendar and the end of who knows what else. As for me, this is simply the end of another day, very nearly the end of another week, and I am grateful.
The prayer from the New Zealand prayerbook (1989) that I say to myself most nights has a line that says, “What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” Good advice. There were a number of things I had wanted to get done this week and I’ve perhaps gotten some of them done. A larger proportion of them remains on the to-do-list and I still hold out some hope that I’ll be able to scratch them off the list by Sunday evening and the start of another work week. But should I not accomplish all the things on my now running to-do-list, I have no choice but to let it be. My fretting over what I did not accomplish does not accomplish anything either other than make my head hurt, my stomach upset and my energy crackle with frustration. Doesn’t sound particularly profitable or effective. “Who” the writer asks, “can add one inch to her height by worrying?” It’s pointless to fret. That being the case, what is an effective approach to the things that didn’t get accomplished? “Let it be” is a very practical if passive response. How about this: be grateful and celebrate what you did manage to get done rather than dwell on what you didn’t? That moves it from the realm of the negative (feel guilty) through the neutral (let it be) all the way to the positive (celebrate the accomplishments).
This morning I was quite fretful about the magnitude of things on my to-do-list–not simply the number of things I feel like I need to get done but also the scope and scale of what I need to do. It all felt a bit overwhelming this morning and I felt the weight of it pressing me early into the day. Nevertheless, I will take care of one or two things on my list tonight before I go to bed, and then tomorrow I’ll strategize what I need to do and how I can manage to make a dent into the list. I am in a pretty intense planning phase: over the next six weeks or so I expect to make some pretty significant decisions about where I’m going to be living and perhaps what I’m going to be doing. Not too much is clear at the moment, but my guess is that big changes are coming very soon. Somehow I have to get ready for them, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I am hopeful that I can approach them with as much equanimity as I can muster.
I am grateful for the day. It was long (I spent 90 minutes in traffic for a commute that usually only takes 30-40), I worked hard, which was a good thing, and there were leftovers so I didn’t have to cook when I finally got home. This weekend a whole lot more working hard will hopefully happen, but also some play time of one sort or another, I hope. We shall see. Whatever I do manage to accomplish, I’m going to celebrate.
