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Tomorrow is my 30th birthday and I feel ready for this milestone. This blog and the brain rewiring process it is documenting are a big part of the ready, waiting eagerness I'm feeling. The next phase of my life (and of rewiring my brain) is almost here, and I my arms are open. My heart is still not fully open, and my brain has many more wires to untangle and dismantle, and new wires to grow and discover, but I feel solidly on my path. While there is much left to do, I have made noticeable progress over the course of this project, and for that I am grateful. For example, today I had way too many things on my To Do list at work, and was unable to get through them all. While this is certainly not a new experience in any way, my reaction to it definitely marks a shift for me. I realized from the beginning of the day that I wasn't going to get it all done, and just let it go. I accepted that only a small portion of the tasks at hand would be crossed off the list, and it didn't effect my mood at all during the day. I worked at a reasonable pace, took a few breaks, and left when it was time to head home. Although in the past I would have realized that I couldn't get everything done, it would have bothered me all day. I would have worked at a frenetic pace, highly stressed and upset with the situation the entire time I was at work. I may have gotten a few more things done than I did today, but not that much more. I would also have spent the entire day stressed, unhappy, and thinking negative thoughts. Instead, when I arrived home tonight, I was ready to have an enjoyable evening, and I also feel happy to finish some things tomorrow that didn't get done today.
It makes me smile to read this blog post and relive the breakthrough I had in that moment 10 years ago. I admire the me who had that day in 2013, and I receive it as medicine here in 2023. Slowing down is now at the center of my life, and yet everything moves so much faster than it did 10 years ago. Hell, I had 0 children 10 years ago!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a poem a few years after this blog post called Eulogy for the Infinite To Do List. As a recovering perfectionist & over-achiever, the perpetual To Do list is my norm. Slowing down is a spell I have been casting for many years. And yet, it can be elusive. It is a practice. And so I return to it, over and over and over, in so much gratitude for my north star for steering me toward sustainability and beauty, both of which point me to less Doing and more Being! And I'm so grateful to 30 year-old Kalil for contributing to casting this spell of Slowness. And I'm curious: What practices will 40 year-old Kalil cultivate in these soils?