So much of what we read about is focused on the big picture: What do you want to do with your life?
Using an airplane analogy, we are asked to look from 50,000 ft, and map out the future.
But I’ve come to realise that unless we order our lives from the bottom up (the more mundane the better), then it’s unlikely we will ever find the space, silence and peace to contemplate the ‘Why’ question.
I am fortified in this view not just because of my own modus operandi but by virtue of the way that a holiday or sudden crises always seems to open a space for us to think (the weekend is seldom long enough). Both of these don’t cure our open loops but, for an instant, they allow our minds to stop thinking of them.
Of course, there are lots of hacks for getting our ‘stuff’ together, and ordering our (busy) lives, but we have to want to change long before we address our habits. I don’t mean change in the conceptual sense either. I mean we want to bring forward our action list and a find a way to close more loops or put in place a system so that what’s on our mind doesn’t permanently stay there. The problem is that our minds can only store so many things and if we don’t manage them we end up stressed out dealing always with the urgent and never getting to the most important.
If you think time is the enemy, it’s not. You or rather your consciousness is your foe. What I picture is bringing order into your life and clearing a space in your mind that enables you to think more clearly about the future and then take ACTION.
For now, I just want to introduce the idea that if you can better manage your (daily) commitments you are far more likely to respond to the idea of change.
This isn’t about striving for the perfect life or thinking you have to suddenly acquire a messianic zeal to sort out your grunge but rather to offer up the idea that if you can find the space to think clearly in an air of calm reflection, you may just be able to do more of the things – life affirming or otherwise – that have for so long been out of sight.