Life's Loose Threads
Sometimes there are too many loose threads in life–things I really want to do, things that would enrich my life--but I never quite get to them.
1. I picked up Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, sat down to start it, and then put it back down.
2. I bought a stunning Thanka Buddhist mandala in Nepal, and it’s still in the cardboard tube I brought it home in.
3. For about 8 months, I’ve been planning to redo my kitchen in bright sunflower paint and Mexican talavera tiles. I haven’t started.
4. For longer than that, I’ve been planning to get a tattoo. The art work is done. It’s ready to go. And I just never get to it.
5. I’ve got a load of stuff for mixed-media art–Altoids boxes, slide frames, bottle caps, and a mountain of paper ephemera–but keep collecting it and never do anything with it.
Why are there things we really want to do--that would really make us happy--that we put off?
posted by Lucia @ 1:45 PM
10 Comments:
Probably inertia.. getting distracted. One thing I know for certain is that when we are truly ready, we do what we want to do. Why pressure yourself?
Re: your comment on my site: If the way a life is lived and the respect that is earned is a measurement of being "in", you have absolutely nothing to be concerned about. You are "in", even when you are quiet. I honestly believe that all of us who come to your site respect you.
(And I don't mean "accept". I mean "respect". Important distinction.
:)
Peace,
~Chani
Oh man, this list sounds familiar. I wish I had an answer. At least your excuse is that you are too busy globe trotting to redo your kitchen. That's better than my excuse, which would just be plain old lazy.
i think because the things we HAVE to do crowd the way and sap our energies.
i mean, you, of all people...who is on the road more often than not, and the inbetween times must be absorbed with the returning and the preparing to leave....
but ah, the tattoo...don't let that one go too much longer. and the kitchen...well, that will be your oasis on sunny mornings. or at least that's how i picture you...
and i wholeheartedly echo chani's comments in relation to the ones you made her way...when i read them, i thought the same thing. In is relative, but you are always, always present for me.
I just looked over at my bedside book pile. In it are 6 books i have started, and 5 books i am waiting to start. But what am i doing instead?
Hi Lucia,
Thanks for the question on my blog, and thanks also for the enthusiasm! I have to think about my process.
I read your entries about horrible travel, and it reminded me why I dislike travel so much. But in a way it's the flip side of the unbridled joy that you experience once you are there. Like "To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season...."
The thing about DOING things is this. We are a very DOING culture, don't you find that to be true? When I lived with a family in Mexico they said I lived as if people were behind me chasing me with burning torches. "Sit in the kitchen and have a tequila," they'd say. And we would listen to mariachi music on the radio, and they would cry.
I learned that my TO DO list could wait, or even burst into flames for all I cared.
In the Enneagram there is a DOING triad. Many of my friends get anxious, irritable and irritating from so much DOING.
I think BEING is highly superior to DOING. And if you (I) can pause to just BE, then I will probably be able to DO. Does that make sense?
Time. If I want something it's time, time to do so many things.
"Real life" gets in the way. And we totally let it. I know I do.
4) Get that tattoo! It's just an appointment, like the dentist, only with more needles and you get something artful at the end.
5) My basement is FULL of mixed-media-to-be things. Maybe we should combine our trinkets and spend a weekend with paints and a gluegun?
I don't know. The other day I had nothing I had to do, and I asked myself, why don't you do some art stuff that you never have time for? No, I didn't really want to do that. I read a chick-lit book instead.
see below, Lucia, 'weary traveler'.
You're very busy!
At least you're having fun, living life. It takes a bored person to remodel a kitchen. ;)
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