You Will Never Get It Done!
Do you have too many things to do? Is life pulling at you in all directions? You need to eat, sleep, work, pay the bills, meet the expectations of others… play, do you even have time to play? Well now you can relax because… you will never get it done!
Nearly twenty years ago when I was running my own software business I was working 50 to 60 hours per week on a regular basis because there was just so much to do. I kept thinking when I get this list of things done I can relax. I got more and more stressed out as I watched the weeks and months roll by and the list kept getting bigger not smaller. So I worked harder and longer until one evening I snapped!
Can you relate to this?
I was up working past midnight, as I often did, and I accidentally deleted an entire folder of important software I had written. I picked up the keyboard and slammed it down on the desk. Discovering that I had broken it I screamed obscenities while I pounded it with my fists. I had promised my client this software update in the morning. What was I going to do?
I had been meaning to backup this folder but I kept putting it off until I got another more important task done. Now I had a broken keyboard. I had a very sore throat, wrist and hand. And I lost more than a week of work! I threw myself to the floor in a heap and began to cry.
It’s surprising how much relief and awareness can come from a good cry. It was then and there that I realized I would never get it done. There is a never-ending stream of new and important things to do coming into my life every day and I could never keep up with it. NEVER! So I gave up trying.
Just a short while ago this lesson came back to me in much deeper and profound way when Abraham, a well-respected teacher of mine, told me “You can never get it wrong because you never get it done.” What Abraham was referring to is when we discover something lacking in our life, or something we desire, or something that seems broken, to look at it as one of those things that are just not done yet. And we have all of eternity to get it done!
Think about it. We are eternal beings. We live forever; not in our present body of course (thank God). But we do have one experience after another, one life after another, whether it is here on this planet, another planet, or another dimension. You can read more about my take on God and Spirituality in the article “Many Gods. Conflicting Theories. Who is Right. But for now lets stay focused on why never getting it done is a good thing.)
So if you live forever, do you really want to get it all done today? Don’t you want to save something interesting to do for tomorrow? Or would you rather have it *perfect* right now and for the rest of eternity to continue on unchanged in some state of eternal perfection with nothing left to do? That last options sounds pretty dull and boring to me. I’d rather be dead, permanently dead, dead like there is no dead.
Now that you have considered this new way of viewing your life, can you get excited that you still have important changes you want to make in it? There is no reason to judge yourself because you cannot do something. You still have time to learn how. You can now be patient and wait for something wonderful that you desire to arrive.
Most important of all you can celebrate who you are today and what you have today because it is the culmination of many of the things you wanted yesterday! You are a success! You have grown, you have achieved and you will continue to grow and achieve! Do you realize that the peace of mind this kind of thinking and logic brings to you now will actually open the doors to let more of what you want into your life? The key to success in all areas of your life is to simply find better feeling ways to think about things or better feeling things to focus your attention upon.
Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Story of Love and Spiritual Growth
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January 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 am
Wow. Perfect timing! I know exactly this feeling, of never getting it done… one time when I was poor and in college, the only work to find was as a temp job working in the local cheese factory or fitness equipment assembly plant. I would put 8-10 hours in late at night standing on my feet at a conveyor belt while cheese log after cheese log came whizzing by, requiring me to scrape it… or while machine after machine would require two wires to be twisted together. How crazy monotonous that was, but it was so stressful to me because I just wanted it to STOP! I wanted there to be an END to it all. I laugh now because those machines are probably STILL going down the conveyor belt, and I am not there.
Seriously though, as a professional, I was a multi-tasking queen and really could get a ton of work done. Now, as a Mom to twin toddlers, I barely have time for a shower and I am once again learning that there really is no end to the stuff that we do. Now I enjoy the stuff more and try to finish it less.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I agree that we should change our focus away from getting things done. If we ever did get everything done, the rest of our lives would be very boring!
We need to understand that what is happening while we are doing all these things is that we are living our lives. If we focus only on the end result - on that mythical day when we have finally achieved all this stuff - we will find that our lives have gone by without us noticing.
Thanks for adding me at Blog Catalog - I will reciprocate…
March 20th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
What a joy to come to this on a morining of feeling overwhelmed!
Thanks for all…including the add at Blogspot.
And a question…almost, but not quite, tongue in cheek… have you considered an anger workshop? Okay, okay…working on it right? Just want to be sure you, and anyone with a “temper” like that aren’t around animals, children, or other people and losing it that way.
Nixzmary Brown (http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/19/nyregion/19nixzmary.html&tntemail1=y&oref=slogin) is only one of many good reasons for doing whatever necessary to bring anger under control…or stay away from those who might suffer because of it. At least 4 - 5 children, most under 4, die each day in the US as a result of child abuse Stopping it may never get done, but we should each do what we can, beginning with learning to control the temper. Yes??? And of course from all I’ve read so far here and at the other post today, your teachings contain all that is needed to begin that process! I don’t just believe that, I know, because I’ve worked on it for 40 years and am still improving.
Thanks again!
A Child is Waiting.
Take care…be aware.
Nancy Gray
Nancy Lee Gray’s last blog post..Filling Squares, Training [NOT] and Child Abuse
March 21st, 2008 at 2:33 am
PLEASE NOTE: the blog says NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO actually it should say 25 years ago…I have come a long way baby! It has taken much effort to reprogram my self around the issue of anger. Still small flare ups occur but it is VERY rare and they last only seconds or in some cases minutes. And God keeps giving me plenty of opportunities to test my change in programming.
I had a small blow up a couple of weeks ago. The one prior to that would have been FOUR MONTHS AGO. This is a huge change for someone who used to blow up daily.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
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