Skip to main content

Bearing Burdens

 horse carrying bags of sack

I woke up this morning with a full to-do list already scheduled. As the day progressed, more items were being added to my plate: calls, meetings, emails, etc. All normal stuff, but I found myself trying to figure out how I would balance the day and get everything done. I was spending increasingly more mental effort on how I would complete the entire list of tasks and leaving less energy to focus on the task at hand.

Maybe I am the only who one suffers from borrowing trouble at times, but I doubt it, so I will unpack this for just a moment. When we try to bear burdens not yet on our shoulders, we waste precious energy and jeopardize that which we are carrying in the moment. Now, I am not against planning and prioritizing, but sometimes we must narrow our focus to what is imminently important in the moment, and temporarily block out what we can worry about later.

We must plan for the future but engage in the moment. It’s a delicate balance. And when the former begins to sabotage the latter, we know we’ve lost that balance. Especially when the “planning” starts to feel more like stressing, as it was threatening to do for me this morning.

Remember, when you try to focus on everything, you end up focusing on nothing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Art of Intentionality

  “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make you.” – Richie Norton   I am not even sure who Richie Norton is, but I love that quote! I imagine a ship drifting out to sea, pushed around by the wind and the waves. No course of direction, yet the captain is frustrated when the ship ends up dashed against the rocks, trapped on a sandbar or marooned on an inhospitable island. It is easy to complain when life takes us where we do not want to go. But who is really to blame if we have never set our sails to align us along an appropriate course? Do we blame the waves, wind and the weather? Or should we blame the captain of the ship? It is our life and our ship. We must set our sails with intentionality and determined choices. Otherwise, we are doomed to aimlessly drift along according to the choices and decisions of others. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Hasty Hares

We live in a world full of hares. People darting from one thing to another. Always looking for a shortcut. Constantly seeking a quick fix. Ever searching for a hack. And more than anything, they want it NOW! Speed seems to have replaced diligent planning and patient determination. It’s all about quick results, immediate feedback and instant gratification. People seem to be less concerned with the direction they are headed than how fast they are moving. They don’t know where they are going – and are quite possibly moving in the wrong direction – but at least they’re making good time! But the pace and aimless effort catches up. They get jaded and burn out. Or they simply end up “lost.” They fail to notice that movement isn’t progress. They don’t consider that sheer velocity, without control and accuracy, is dangerous and destructive. They forget the tortoise wins. Every. Single. Time. “It matters not how slowly you go. It only matters that you do not stop.” – Confucio...
Post a Comment
Read more