Doing Unimportant Things

Over three days, I've been sharing three major take-aways that I've had from reading the children's book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (Random House Children's Books.)   First, I explored becoming a Miracle Maker, and I challenged all of my readers to go make a miracle.  Yesterday, I learned to notice what is often missed.  Now, I will look at doing unimportant things.  Today's lesson is particularly stinging for me.  It is one that I am certain I am better at than I was 20 years ago, but I mastery is a long way off.  On his quest, our young protagonist Milo is challenged to only do unimportant things.  Here is the conversation in which he asks why he should only do unimportant things.

"But why do only unimportant things?" asked Milo.  The answer: "Think of all the trouble it saves...If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult.  You just won't have the time.  For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and...you'd never know how much time you were wasting." 

What I "really should be doing" is writing more--writing this blog more regularly again, finishing the memoir I started during the winter, and placing The Game Called Life on Amazon as an ebook, a process begun last fall.  What else I should be doing is exercising more.  Why don't I what's important to me?  My answer is always that I don't have time.  More truthfully, the answer might be I am doing unimportant things. I had almost two hours to watch a movie last night, and I've had time at least two nights in the last 10 to watch mindless (truly mindless) television.  Those are unimportant things.

But, the answer to the "Why don't I?" question isn't as straight-forward as it may seem.  I work long hours, and I come home so brain-dead that making dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and falling on the couch to watch something mindless are the extent to which my brain will function.  That, however, is an easy-out, and it begs the more probing question, "Why do I work so many hours?"

I'd like to say that it is because I care about my customers, and I want to make sure they get the services they need in a timely manner.  That is absolutely true.  I'd like to say it is because my boss has no clue what she has assigned me, and it is way more than any human could handle in the 40 hours that I am supposed to work.  That is absolutely true.  Yet, while both are absolutely true, there is more to the story.

I am a recovering work addict.  Maybe back-sliding work addict is more accurate.  Like all addictions, once an addict, always an addict.  A person who isn't a work addict would have gone to my boss and put all the stuff on my plate in front of her, and then asked, "What don't you want me to do?"  I haven't because I am afraid the answer will (in other words) be, "Don't take care of the customers," and instead do some meaningless task that someone will never notice. 

Are the things that I do at work unimportant?  Some are.  Could I work smarter to eventually get ahead of the curve?  Certainly, but my bosses can't see the strategy beyond today's demands.  So in order to protect my important work, I do way too much. I work this way because I am a work addict.  While I have made progress over the years, I have a long way to go.  I totally own it.

(I gave up fall and spring housecleaning, a Midwestern practice where every inch of the house is cleaned within a few days twice each year, decades ago. You'll probably find the same dust bunnies under my bed that were there a year ago. I am now OK with friends visiting and seeing my almost-always-cluttered desk, which would have mortified me a few years ago.  I've learned to live with the cracking paint on my balcony instead of repainting it, so that I have time to sit and contemplate the forest a few feet further away.)

Approaching life so that the writing, which feeds my soul, and the exercise that physically reinvigorates me drop off my plate is ripping the soul from me.  Sacrificing these essential activities for lower priority activities just isn't working any more.  When I read Milo's question and his collaborator's answer over the weekend, it pierced me.  You will notice that I have written three nights in a row.  Yeah!! 

Tonight has been difficult.  I had to choose between exercise, writing, getting the fob which allows me to enter the building validated, and helping a neighbor during his vacation.  Exercise ate it tonight.  Tomorrow evening it will most likely be writing that will slip, but I will get exercise walking to my dance class and light exercise in the class.  I am making peace with that and even contemplating that I might write on my iPhone app on the train when I am coming home. 

What is really important about making these hard choices is that I am really making them. That is what living with intention is really about: making conscious choices, based on my important priorities.  I am not doing unimportant things like falling onto the couch to watch mindless TV.  I am looking at my priorities and choosing among them.  If I do this every day, who knows one day I might actually get that memoir done and The Game Called Life may soon be available for your Kindle.  Better yet, one day I might actually ask the boss to take something off my plate.