Holy
Sprint, Batman!
“It's
those little daily incidents of life that are dramatic, and if you
put a frame around it, suddenly they become bigger and more important
than you ever imagined.”
Tracy
Chevalier
Do you ever race though
whatever you have to do in order to get to the next thing? Some days
are like that, especially this time of year. Everyone is flying
around like mad ants trying to cover all the holiday “necessities.”
We become impatient when anything holds us up. Case in point, the
line at the Post Office—standing for close to an hour with twelve
other people, while one poor clerk tries to move as fast as she can,
but the computer is not cooperating, and the customer she's serving
wants 200 Christmas stamps of a variety the clerk does not have.
Another person in line has brought two young children and a baby in a
car seat. The two young ones are quickly bored and begin to whine.
Then, they pull out all the postal forms from the kiosk, mix them up
and put them back in the wrong slots. The baby frets, so it's mother
rocks the carrier with her red cowboy boot. Every one else on line grinds their
teeth and foot-taps with growing aggravation. It's a tough time to be
in a rush, but it's a great time to observe human nature.
We become frustrated, not
because of the stoppage in line, not because children are making a
mess, but because we have attached so much importance to sprinting
through our “to-do” list. And, because we have declared too many
things “necessities.” Were we to cut that in half, or better
still, a third, we'd feel less stressed, and more appreciative of the
importance of each moment. I am as guilty as anyone to declare some
activities more important than others. On Saturday, for instance, I
felt I had to make soup for a friend who's recovering from surgery,
get all the eBay shipping done, since this month is the busiest of
the year, and list at least five or six items for sale to keep our
inventory up. Somewhere in there, the dog needed to be walked, and I
had to hit the grocery store to buy ingredients for the soup. Oh, and
I wanted to bake some yeast rolls—the ones that have to rise for
half a day. That was the very same day I was stuck on line at the Post
Office for an hour. The Gods do have a sick sense of humor, don't
they?
Let's slow down. Let's
cut those to-do lists down to size. Let's put a frame around the
everyday, and the insignificant, and watch the magic they create. It
will help put a little joy back in the season.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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