Total Body Yoga Blog
"No Sitting" Syndrome
By Laura Mills
One Saturday, finding myself with a few hours free before dinner, I walked in the door looking forward to reading. But before my legs touched the couch, I thought of the folder in the kitchen drawer, the one storing the take-out menus, and how I had been meaning to reorganize it but hadn’t yet done so. So I put down my book, pulled out the folder, and weeded out the oldest menus. Then, I figured as long as I was standing at the kitchen counter, I would put away the dishes that had been drying beside the sink. After that—I was already in the kitchen, anyway—I thought I might as well get a head start on dinner….
In the end, before dinner, I read for about 5 minutes.
This is not unusual for me. Looking back at that afternoon as an example, I wonder why I carve my days into the tiniest increments of productive time. Is my goal to be able to sit—SOMEDAY—and congratulate myself on how good it feels to finally have everything just perfect? The more I think about that, the more futile it seems. I’m not sure such a point even exists, and if it does, I don’t think I would recognize it when I arrived there anyway.
Maybe that’s the trick: learning how not to struggle with perfecting life at the expense of life itself.
2/1/2012 Tags: Laura Mills, slowing down, productivity, perfection Direct Link