Day 296: You Don't Have to Make Everything Productive
I've been thinking about how easily we can turn just about anything into something that needs to have a purpose.
We go for a walk because it's good exercise. We read a book because we want to learn something. We take a class because we want to improve a skill. We make something because we might be able to sell it, give it away, or turn it into another project.
Whatever happened to doing something simply because we enjoy it?
I know I'm guilty of this. I love learning, creating, figuring things out, and making things work better. I can spend hours playing with a new AI tool and be having the time of my life, even though to someone else it would look suspiciously like work.
And then I'll catch myself thinking about how I can use what I've learned, what I can build with it, how much time it might save me, and where it fits into everything else I'm creating.
Apparently, I can even turn playing into a productivity project.
A few days ago, I mentioned seeing an ad for making colorful dog collars. It immediately reminded me of how much I loved macramé when I was in my twenties.
I used to make these elaborate plant hangers because I had lots of plants and I loved creating things with my hands. I'd get completely absorbed in figuring out a new pattern or watching something take shape from a bunch of cord.
There wasn't a business plan involved. I wasn't thinking about how many I could make in an hour or whether anyone would buy them. I was simply enjoying what I was doing. It was the 70s, things were simple, and remembering that made me happy.
I'm not running out to buy the dog collar kit because I already have plenty of things I'm interested in doing. But it reminded me that there was a time when I could spend hours on something without needing to justify why I was doing it.
II also loved doing large needlepoint projects in my twenties, back when my eyesight made that kind of detailed work a whole lot easier!
We seem to lose some of that as we get older and our lives become filled with responsibilities.
We start measuring our time by what needs to be accomplished, and anything that doesn't produce a result can begin to feel like time we should have spent doing something else.
Even our relaxation can become another thing we're supposed to do correctly.
We track our steps, our sleep, our meditation, our reading, and how many minutes we spend exercising.
I appreciate all those tools, and I use several of them myself. But it's funny when you stop and look at how much of our lives we're measuring.
This morning I ran into a neighbor who was watering his plants and I was happy to see him to chat for a little bit. Almost at the very same moment my inner voice said, "you know, you aren't going to get much of a walk this morning if you stand here and talk because you have to do your videos right after this."
It was like I was being spied on by my calendar, but no, it was my inner voice, which apparently is just as on top of my schedule as AI!
Sometimes I want to walk on the beach because I want to see what's happening at the water's edge. I want to watch the pelicans diving for fish, see what the tide has brought in, and enjoy the feeling of the breeze.
I don't need that walk to accomplish anything.
And I certainly don't need to turn it into another opportunity to think through something I'm working on.
I've been paying more attention to that lately, especially after recognizing in the past, I had a tendency to think about work while I was still standing on the beach.
What a waste of a perfectly good beach walk!
I don't feel like being reminded about my schedule this morning was quite the same thing. I can get carried away talking to people, so a little awareness of the time is helpful. And I still stayed to enjoy the conversation with my neighbor.
One of the things I've always loved about living in Cabo is the way the natural world becomes part of everyday life.
You don't have to arrange a special outing to experience something beautiful. Sometimes you just look up from what you're doing and there's a spectacular sunrise, a bird doing something entertaining, or the ocean putting on a show.
But we still have to be present enough to enjoy it.
And that brings me back to why we want so many of the things we work toward in the first place.
We want freedom, enjoyment, satisfaction, peace, and the ability to spend our days doing things that feel good to us. We imagine how wonderful life will be when we've created enough time and space to enjoy those experiences.
And then we get busy creating the life and forget to enjoy the parts of it that are already here.
I've done that often enough to recognize it when it happens.
The funny thing is that enjoyment doesn't always require us to take a vacation, buy something, or rearrange our entire schedule. Sometimes it's a few minutes watching a funny dog video, sitting outside with a cup of something warm, or getting lost in a book when we have absolutely no intention of learning anything useful from it.
We can let something be enjoyable without giving it another job.
And I love the idea of giving ourselves permission to do more of that.
I've done that with making a habit to watch at least one dog video before each TikTok video I upload, 3 a day. It's either something that is makes my heart sing or something that makes me laugh out loud, and I don't do that often enough. So in that way, TikTok had been a gift.
After all, we're spiritual beings having a human experience, and part of that experience is getting to enjoy being here. We have senses that allow us to appreciate beauty, music, food, nature, laughter, and all the little things that make an ordinary day feel good.
We don't have to earn those pleasures by finishing everything on our lists first.
And we don't have to explain how they're helping us become better people.
Sometimes the experience itself is enough.
So today I'm giving myself permission to enjoy something without turning it into anything else.
No lesson to learn. No result to measure. No way to make it more efficient. Just something that feels good to do.
Because the life we're creating is also the life we're living today, and I'd hate to be so busy building the next version of it that I miss the enjoyment available in this one.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about something you enjoy doing that has no particular purpose beyond making you happy.
Ask yourself:
When was the last time I let myself do this simply because I enjoy it?
Give yourself a little time for something pleasurable today.
Let it be something you choose for the experience itself, with nothing to accomplish or improve.
You're allowed to enjoy your life while you're creating it.
With you,
Lynn
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