Every time we have a writer’s group meeting somebody says, “I should be writing more.” Most meetings you will hear that sentence uttered several time over the course of the evening, and sometimes every single one of us will have said it at some point. Yesterday even I said it. Only I said, “I really should be writing more, and I definitely should be making more music because being creative is where my energy and happiness come from.” Also I have this feeling that this is my calling as much as I resent it. But that’s not what I wanted to write about today.
We all have these things that we think we should be doing more of, or that we want to do more of. I bet that each of you has a list like:
- write more on my blog,
- write more novels,
- write more songs,
- spend more time with my child/children,
- exercise more,
- clean the house more,
- spend more time with my significant other,
- be more happy,
- meditate more often,
- spend more time with friends,
- lose more weight,
- spend more time in the garden,
- finish more projects
- get more sleep
You all know your own “more of”-list.
And now I’m wondering, what is it that I want less of? Because you can’t always put more and more and more into your days. They are quite crowded as they are, aren’t they?
In my case I have this feeling that I already slimmed my life down to the essentials. I can’t really do less. Of course there are quite a few things in there that I don’t like doing but the consequences of not doing them would be quite unpleasant. Taxes, meetings with relatives, kindergarten organizational stuff (I just spent three days looking for my son’s recorder that got lost, for example. Three days of mentally being tied up with a dumb piece of plastic. I’m glad to say that I found it in the end, but still.)
So, most things that I could do less of involve either things that are really necessary, or things that are really pleasant. The only thing I’m sure I want to have less of in my life is procrastination. It takes a lot of my energy and time, and it’s neither pleasant nor necessary. And I might be able to streamline my time at the computer a bit, and my housework and such. But other than that I’m at a loss. I also know that I will be thinking about this for the next few decades so there is no need to rush it.
What’s with you, what do you want more of in your lives, and what do you want less of?
I’ve tagged you at my place.
I write plenty, although not anything of permancy or merit, really. I should clean more.
I should clean more, and I would love to sleep more!
you have my “more” list down, I think. i would like to spend less time looking for things, spend less time putting out other people’s fires, spend less time driving places….
This was a nice thought inspiration, thanks. I have thought about this a lot lately, since it was “lent” time. The protestant church had an initiative which was not about the classic lent (no meat and whatever else “not”), but they encouraged with a brochure and some letters, that we should be getting everything out of our lives, that keeps us down in any ways.
For me it was cutting down the shopping, cutting down the computer time and putting up my sports (swimming) and it was a great time and I will try and keep up all those habits.
But it’s quite hard to stay with good habits and much easier to keep bad habits that have sneaked in my life without me even noticing it.
Thanks for your great email and all the links (would have never found it without you linking it) – I liked it a lot and read all, I just didn’t have the time to answer during the last two weeks.
Lovely sentiment. I’ve been in this phase of “spring resolutions” and honestly, my list is eerily similar to yours…. and it can’t all happen. Not all at once. Or not as much as I want.
As for less? Random computer surfing… and television…. but that’s already way down.
So I’m trying to learn to be a little more forgiving, a little gentler with myself. Have a few daily goals (dedicated meditation time, writing time, play time and some form of enjoyable exercise) and squeak in the rest of my “mores” as they can happen.
Rambling now… but I stumbled on a good one here!
more time outside and less time worrying about things i cannot change.
Hi, good question! I always spent a lot of time with thinking about my communications. May be sometimes that is helpful and neccessary, but I need too much time for that. I would like to have a less “big mouth”, that means speaking less. Then I could save a lot of time recretting what I have said. And I want to make more music, like you!