TOW: Cutting Back

Woah, seems like I forgot to do a TOW and a VOW last week. Eh heh. Consider it part of my new regime. It's called 'do less.' I know it's hard to believe, but I'm doing a lot, A LOT less than I used to, and now I'm 'making it work.' Somehow.

After some revelations about what kind of effects stress has been having on me lately, about money, about life, about scary neighbours and crazy apartment issues, I've decided that even I need a break from crazy behaviour now and again. And by now and again, I mean, now. And not again.

=)


There is a certain pattern that is quite addictive, especially living in a big city, or living a certain kind of life. It's the life that says, "I want my life to be full, and so I'm going to fill it with things. And these things will keep me busier than other people, and that will make me happy." And we think, much in the way a rich man fill his life with things, that these items of time that fill our daily schedule, fill our lives. Truthfully, giving away all our time to causes, to people, to too much work, only give away our happiness. And it turns us into people that hate our own lives.

And I don't want to be the kind of person that hates my own life.



And, I think part of the problem is that I have put myself in high-stress environments because I assume it will make me happier, somewhere in the future. In reality, however, it will probably just make me unhappy and stressy. =/

So, recently, I have been cutting back on the activities I have been doing, and I have been making time for friends, making time for the hobbies I used to do regularly. I think less about money, think less about trying to fill my time with work, and look for ways to fill my time with the things I actually like, the things that make me feel like the kind of person I want to be.

When I was a little kid, there was a great book I used to read, and re-read for the lessons in it called "Sideways Stories from Wayside High." One of the stories was about a little girl artist who spent her entire art class trying to draw as many pictures as she could every class. And the moral of the story, is, of course, that a great artist doesn't draw very many pictures or paintings...a great artist creates great art. The point is that even the little artist had to learn that great art meant creating in a way that was meaningful.

And for all the things we want to achieve in life, we need to make time for them, so that we don't miss moment in our lives we should have been having.