Yesterday, I got a little lesson: Make space in life for living. I was running behind schedule, not an unusual event. I dashed into a gift shop, glanced quickly around and soon spotted what seemed like
perfect gift for a friend handed it to cashier, asked her to wrap it and pulled out my credit card. She put it in purple tissue paper, placed it in a bag and began to tie a bow. The bow tying would delay me two or three minutes so I told her to skip it. She handed me bag and dialed in my credit card while I thought to myself "Why didn't she dial my credit card in first?" This would delay me another minute. She became aware of my urgency and began to tease me about being in a hurry. I was not amused. I was, however amused later that evening when I arrived for a birthday dinner with my friend and realized I had walked out of gift shop without gift. I also locked my keys in car with engine running while making a "quick stop" before day was over.
This lesson "make space in life for living" came one month to day since I turned off my TV, draped a gold tablecloth over it, placed some candles on it and canceled my cable service. I do not miss it one bit. This was a good first step. I am not finished yet.
A friend recently said to me, "Frank Sinatra didn't move pianos." I took this to mean he focused on what he loved and what he was good at and left rest to others to do what they loved and what they were good at. Perhaps this is what allowed "The Chairman of The Board" to quickly became a legend in his industry and make time to enjoy living every day.
The people who focus on accomplishment, who plan, project, analyze and organize everything to get a job done, are frequently same people who would be tuning and moving pianos if they were in singing business. They would spend too much time on process and not enough time on passion. Life is for living not sacrificing your soul doing those things that suck life out of you.
If you are feeling mired in minutia of your life, try some of these tips to get unstuck and get out from under, doing so will allow you to start to sing and glide into more real living. Leave pianos to moving experts.
Make Space in Your Life for True Living. Some things make you feel you are really living- like sharing a good meal with great friends, skating in park, getting front row seats for opera, taking your dog for a walk on a bright sunny day. We need more time for those activities - and even more time to bring our compelling visions into reality. Where is time and space in your life going to come from to do that?
