I like plans and schedules. They keep my life in order with everything that needs to be accomplished in the different compartments of my life. They also cause me the most stress. When things don't go as planned, I feel my self-imposed pressure closing in on me. Heaven help the person next to me when the monster is unleashed. (A's typical response to that: "Mom, I think you need coffee". It works in much the same way as the Black Widow's lullaby to let the Hulk sleep and wake up Bruce). I must admit, letting go is a lesson I continue to struggle with.
Last Friday A asked me what my plans were for the weekend. I almost panicked at the realization that I had not planned anything at all ... until I realized it meant being able to catch-up on sleep and household chores ... finally!
Yesterday, after taking care of all the chores (well, most), we planned to have dinner and then catch a movie. We didn't get to watch a movie, but we did get to enjoy a long dinner and brainstorm on our life dreams over dessert and tea latte. The past weeks had been a whirlwind with hardly room for breathing. It was great to just sit together and talk without worrying about schedules.
Today we planned to go to the 5 pm Mass. That did not pan out, so we went to the 6:30 pm Mass instead. I'm glad we did, because it was our friend priest who presided and his homily was beautiful. God even threw in a couple of eye candies for me and my sister.
Overall, the schedule-free weekend turned out to be the best weekend I've had in the past couple of months.
Thinking about it now, I realized, that the schedules per se do not cause the stress. It is how the schedules are organized. In this day and age when technology allows us to do things a lot faster and more efficiently, you'd think we would have more time to do the important things. But we don't. Instead of carving out time to spend with the people we love, we squeeze in more tasks. It has become an endless race to do more and achieve more.
I am no stranger to this. In fact, I am right smack in the middle of this swirl. In my struggle to balance everything, I sometimes take for granted the most basic needs of my most critical partner: myself.
We are time-bound and we need to make full and good use of what little time we have. True. It is our duty to be the best of what God had intended us to be. True. But "best version" does not necessarily mean to be "great" by current social definition. It means making a positive difference in the lives (and the environment) God had entrusted us with - whether that's your immediate family, your community, your country or the world is between you and God. But it's the lives (including yours) that matter, not the tasks. And lives cannot be scheduled. For one thing, nothing ever happens exactly as planned. No. Lives, I find, unfold more beautifully when spontaneous.
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