I have a To Do List.
Had a To Do List.
Unlike many, mine was not actually written on a stark page titled To Do with numbers and lines and arrows. Not for me the paper prison. My To Dos were scattered on tiny purple post-its, in mental notes and calculations, in tweets, and in the drafts folder of this website and Fictionette. All over the place. Much like my interests and commitments.
Until I realized something.
Herewith a list of things I realized:
- The only reward I was giving myself for getting something done was moving onto a new task – equally unmotivating.
- I wasn’t enjoying or even really noticing what I was doing in the moment.
- I was procrastinating like mad because I couldn’t see what my perpetual motion was getting me.
- The To Do List wasn’t actually working. In fact, it was making things worse.
- The list is life!
Let me explain that last.
I’ve met people who structure their lives by lists. Agendas. Schedules. Calendars. They have entire books of Stuff To Do. And the only reward they seem to give themselves for completing a task is to move on to the next one. Repeat, ad infinitum. Even the most important things in the world are on these people’s lists: playing with their children, date night with their husbands, writing X pages of their novel – whatever.
The problem is… these people are always living in the future. They want to get done what they’re doing at present in order to get on to the Next Big Thing. The next thing is always the goal and is always what they’re looking at – never what’s being done at present.
These people have put their lives on a ticklist. And they’re ticking away their precious hours, minutes, years without ever living in the moment.
I, too, was doing this.
Why?!
Here’s what I want instead:
Things To Amuse Small Children With When I’m 80 (TTASCWWI80).
No, I’m serious.
Think about it: are you going to be able to spin an enjoyable yarn for your grandchildren out of completing a To Do List? Will it impart to a small child even a semblance of a lust for life or enjoyment of the moment to hear “And the moral of my life, you see, son: I got a lot of shit done. Look at these lists. All ticked off!”
No.
And that’s the thing. “Living” life in the future means you’re not actually living. You’re just surviving. And bare emotional subsistence doesn’t make for many TTASCWWI80s.
A moment of backtracking.
I realize that there are Things That Need Done(tm) in the world. Taxes. Correspondence. Admin stuff. Going to the dentist. Not denying that.
What I’m denying is that we need to rush through these things to get to the Next Thing. I’m denying that we need to constantly live in the future and completely miss out on the joy and richness of the present.
Remedy: Be in the moment. Live the moment. Enjoy the moment.
Yes, even if it’s doing taxes.
Because the highest highs in life are so often far between (which is a good thing, I think – constant joy leaves us without a reference point to appreciate it), it’s imperative that we extract whatever simple joys or pleasures we can from our daily lives.
Otherwise it’s 1 or 2 moments of brilliant, light-filled, colorful triumph in our life, and 80 years of grey ticklists.
Live in the present.
Don’t live for the list. If you need to have a list to remind you to do your taxes and go to the dentist, that’s perfectly fine. But don’t let your list become a tyrant. Don’t deny what’s going on in the present or the possible enjoyment you can derive from it in favor of the constant go-go-go of the future.
Be with yourself in the present. Live your life instead of just getting through it.
Then you’ll start racking up those TTASCWWI80s.
