Friday, February 5, 2010

So Far Behind...

When I was in junior high, I used to collect pithy sayings. You know, like "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

The smart-alec kid in me loved, "It's hereditary, I get it from my kids."

Being a lefty, one of my favorites said, "If right-handed people use the left side of their brain, then only left-handed people are in their right minds!"

Lately I've been recalling one in particular: "God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die." That quote is credited to Bill Watterson, of Calvin and Hobbes fame.

Do you ever feel that way? I look at the mountain of laundry inhabiting my couch and cringe at even thinking of folding it. Sometimes I catch up, but the next day it's back again. Same with the dishes, dirt on the floor, toys, grocery lists, bills, and the list goes on.

The responsibilities each have a tiny weight to them, and lately the number of them seems to have reached a critical mass that leaves me struggling for each next task in my lifetime to-do list. I start Monday with a list of things to do, and by Friday I'm still not through with Monday's list.

I can't remember the last time I finished the list. It has been so long, in fact, since I have finished even Monday's list, that I have stopped caring. Stopped caring to the point that I have developed the ability to just leave it all and escape into computer world.

How do you catch up when you are so far behind you'll never die? After years of excusing myself because of pregnancies, babies, moving and every excuse in the book, I recognize that they are just excuses: and I have so little self-discipline that I cannot get a new grip on the responsibilities of my life.

But the good news about being so far behind, as the creator of Calvin and Hobbes so memorably pointed out, is that I've got as much time as I need to finish everything God gave me.

And maybe, in tomorrow's iteration of Groundhog Day, I will even make a little progress on that list.

1 comment:

  1. i have found myself like this a lot lately. so i am paring down the list.

    i've been enjoying reading and catching up with you. i don't have magical advice, i only just now got my kitchen back to being *mine*.

    ReplyDelete

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