Does Your To-Do List Lead To What You Love?
/Attending to business, rockin’ on through the day, plugging up the holes in my to-do list, and cracking the whip on the lazy leftovers, I come to the end of the day, putting the buzz to rest. I slip into my nightwear, comfy in my skin, happy with the lingering glow of duties done and tasks completed. I look at the checkmarks on the screen with prideful eyes. Yes, I can be a killer agent, a task master, an amazing manifestor. I can come to the chopping block with sharpened ax and steady intent. Big outcomes come out of little acts; and the tiny effort I apply today yields amazing results tomorrow.
I know my sleep is hindered, my energy held hostage, when I leave the little things undone, when I let the list pile up, when I fall short of the final act, and I pull the covers over the clutter of my life, closing my eyes on it all. I know my soul weeps over the bones of elephants, those memory keepers of the heart’s desire, who died as I chased them from their wild habitat, clearing the land and tilling the soil for my own tamed and tethered life.
This to-do list both holds me hostage and sets me free. I know my future depends on it, but I also recognize that the future I build may or may not be the world my heart desires. My to do list gives me a list of things to do, but does not tell me who I am, how to be, or what I love. And this is the deeper question: Does my list lead to what I love? Is the clutter a clue to clean up my life rather than my list?
I give this dilemma to my dreaming mind, taking it to the underworld, offering it to the fires that burn away all the trifles and trivia of my life. I open the all-seeing eye. I look into the Buddha Mirror. I scan the landscape of the soul. Whenever I use the heart’s compass, I see that my next step is always at my feet no matter where I cast my vision or how far away I aim.
I have a habit of keeping a very long to-do list and many items carry over from day to day. This can easily lead to judging myself as lazy. I often come to the end of a day and wonder what I accomplished. This is the plight of work on the mental and emotional plane, where results are often not as apparent as they are with physical labor. Even the results of my writing remain hidden in the circuitry of a computer; and my Facebook postings and email blog often seem to go unnoticed by the world. I work in a sheltered enclavve, in my little home office, hammering away at....what? This is the questions today's daily intent raises:
Does my to-do list lead
to what I love?
This is another entry taken from my daily intent writing session, in which I look at my day and write about how I might like to experience it or what I might like to think or feel about it. It is also an example of my Questions series. Please click the tags below to read more in each series. You can also read and hear a recording of a poem adapted from this blog:
© Nick LeForce
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