Tag Archives: overachieving

I made this my Facebook status today and it was immediately well received. Made me ponder that maybe I was on to something.

Think about it.

All year long we race around, make lists, disappoint ourselves with never completing everything we set out to do in a day. Why? For what reason do I set myself up for hyper-productivity? Like I am a better person if all the laundry is done and my closets are cleaned at the end of a weekend day? Yeh, right. Who cares if maybe the blueberries in the fridge are a little on the fuzzy side (ok, maybe my daughter since she did mention tossing them) — we could think of them as pets instead of food. Kind of like domestic multi-use.

I worked with someone once who told me a clean desk was the sign of a sick mind. Maybe everything done and in order all the time is not such a big deal. Maybe it is actually a losing a battle. Maybe an ever evolving to-do list is ok. Maybe sometimes we need to shut up and shut down in order to rest up to push that bolder back up the hill when we have no other choice. Perhaps the doing nothing piece is a way of letting the brain slow down to gear up again. This is a completely different way of thinking for someone like me. I am usually a moving target.

I won’t lie, lying around is not usually my thing. If I am not productive for too long a period of time I start to feel lousy. But there is something to be said for lounging in bed and reading a book, staying in your pajamas till 3:00 (or 4, or 5), drinking a little too much (define ‘too much’) and just hanging out. Hey, my kids seem to think that it is a full time job. I wonder what they would do if I moved the couches out of the house.

My point? I guess it would be that having a couple of weeks at the end of the year to lose the scheduling and the frenzy and just be lazy can have its benefits. First, for someone like me, at the end of all this I am dying to be productive again. But while I am still in it I am starting to take some pleasure in being a slug.

My family, on the other hand, wants to know why we don’t have any ______ (fill in the blank) left in the house.

Hey, you guys all drive…

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.