Lessons From A Global Shut Down

My life has been like speeding down a highway in my van at 120MPH. For some reason, I felt like I had to keep going faster and cover more ground. Then one day, the road disappeared, and there was nothing. Suddenly I was in free fall. I was scared at first, because I couldn't see any bottom, and I couldn't feel anything familiar around me. But after a while, I realized that I wasn't falling, in fact, I wasn't anything—I was just being. That was 5 weeks ago and my life will never be the same. 

I've done a lot in my life and accomplished many goals. But even at my age—I turned 65 a week ago—I still felt like I had to not only accomplish more, but to accomplish a lot. In reality, I had unknowingly backed my self into corner with no way out. Instead of accomplishing a lot, I was actually accomplishing very little, because I never finished anything. Instead, I flitted around from project to project, like a hummingbird moving from flower to flower. While I did a lot of work, it was spread out so much that all my projects suffered from a lack of real, focused attention.

Then I hit free fall and none of those projects seemed to matter. I look at the past 5 weeks and feel that I haven't accomplished anything. But if I look deeper, I realize I've gained a lot. Most importantly, I've gained perspective over all the plates I had kept spinning these past few years. And I've learned to let them fall. Some smashed into a million pieces, while others bounced away. A few of them gently floated with me in this moment as I discovered what really mattered to me.

I now feel a sense of freedom, a freedom from unburdening myself from too much to try to do. I've picked up the 3 things that matter the most to me, the 3 things that I am willing to put all my time and effort into, and I feel happy. Most of all, I can see the real possibility of finishing these things. And when life gets back to a new normal—nothing will ever be the same as before—I will avoid burdening myself again with too much to do. I feel that a lot of us will take this time to pause and reflect on what life really means to us, and when we pick up the pieces we can choose which pieces really matter to us.

~ MB

No great art has ever been made 

without the artist having known danger. 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Over the past 9 years and 3 different blogs, I've written almost 500 blog posts. That's a lot of my time and energy devoted to putting my thoughts and ideas out there on the internet for you to read. If you've enjoyed reading them, and have gotten value out of them, please consider a donation. You'll be helping me keep writing for hopefully another 9 years. Thank You ~ MB.