I’m a list maker. Regardless of the circumstance, you can rest assured that somewhere there’s a notebook page with a numbered list on it – often revised over and over again. I’m a little anal, I know.
The other day I came to realize that while my “lists” are meant to guide me, all they really do is cause my anxiety levels to rise, as I begin to feel overwhelmed by my self-inflicted deadlines. It can lead me to become agitated and cranky as projects pile up with little feeling of accomplishment.
Sometimes I think I overcomplicate my life by assigning importance to things that simply don’t deserve it. I allow myself to get so caught up in my “to-do-lists” that I simply miss out on the little miracles going on all around me – the quiet simple times talking to a friend on the phone or spending time with someone you love.
Author Kent Nerburn writes, “We live in a time when it is hard to speak from the heart. The poetry of our spirits is silenced by the thoughts and cares of a thousand trivialities.” Our lives are busier than ever. But at some point you need to stop and ask yourself if you’re assigning the trivialities in your life more importance than they deserve?
