Mental Debates

My garden is in the midst of change. I am in the process of moving our vegetable patch from one side to the other. A not so small undertaking! I have been ably assisted by our regular gardener and his brother, and still the work goes on. Yesterday I spent almost three hours just turning the soil. That may seem like a little bit of overkill but then again I suspect that my house is perched on an old riverbed. That would certainly explain the great quantities of river rocks that lie hidden in the ground. My three hours of garden fork time realised great quantities of rocks, yet only about 30% of the area is now done! I cannot wait to get started on it again today.....

I went to church last night and did some thinking.

My mind has been in turmoil for months, well truth be told, years! I have this feeling that I am not doing what I should be doing and yet my life is busy beyond belief. I wondered last night if the three hours that I spent in the garden was purely wasted time as it should have been spent on something more value adding like my children or some or other charity venture. The crux of the debate that rages within me is am I wasting my time on silly pursuits, ergo the new old car I have just bought?

My quiet time brought some light!

I always thought of life as a pure set of priorities, first family then the other stuff. Every decision should then put family first before anything else. This is perhaps very idealistic and impractical. I have long looked at much of the stuff that I do as non value adding, like gardening, home maintenance, and yes, even surfing! This because it does not put family first, or spirituality, or even any of the other priorities that I have. My narrow definition of value adding also added fuel to my internal debate, i.e. value adding is when what I do helps others. But perhaps this is not a good way to look at things all the time. Surely there are times when I need to do things that are just about me, or things that just have to get done so that life can go on?

I also stumbled onto the thought that perhaps all of these priorities in life are not the same at any one time. Now there is a thought! Well not an original thought but really my deeper understanding about balance and how it affects my life.

Instead of my fixed priorities being family, spirituality, charity, income, fitness, relaxation and fun at all times, perhaps how I choose to spend my time on them can change regularly. This does not diminish their importance, as that order is right, it just changes my internal view of when it is OK to do them. Today it could be fun, then family, and tomorrow spirituality, then income. I would imagine that I then have to balance it all to ensure that at the end of the month, year, my life, I have spent my time according to my fixed priorities. Perhaps this would give me the right focus and hopefully the right results due to that focus.

Perhaps you think I am mad, but this has bothered me for years. I just could not manage to meet my fixed list every day and hence spent most of time at the end of the day beating myself up about how I am wasting my life. Now I have this understanding that I have some time in which to balance things out. Hopefully now, I can cut out the useless mental debate and actually do something.....