A while back I wrote a post entitled The Art of Doing Less. Some of the comments on that post got me thinking that perhaps I had given it the wrong title, and really it should have been called "The Art of Getting Less Done". This post is the result of all that rattling around in my brain.
There used to be a commercial for some sort of dish washing detergent that went something like this:
As a woman is putting away the last dish, a voice says "You know that feeling when the dishes are finally done..." Then we cut to a dream scene where blissful music is playing and the woman is jumping for joy in a rapturous frenzy exclaiming, "Free! Free! I'm Free!!!!" Just then the music comes to a screeching halt and she is jolted back to reality as a kid hands her another dirty plate. "OK, well.... kinda free." she says with a shrug.
It's sooooo true, isn't it? Sometimes I feel like that commercial is a metaphor for my entire life.
We live in a society that puts an inordinate weight on the idea of "getting things
done." We want to be finished, to cross things off of our "to-do" lists, to have a string of accomplishments that we can claim. It's like our value as human beings is measured in achievements achieved, feats finished and deeds done.
But when you really stop and think about it, where is this mythical land of "Done?" I think that on some level we all carry around in our heads some sort of crazy idea that a time will come when we'll be all finished, and then we can spend the rest of our lives sitting around in lavish tubs drinking champagne and eating bon bons.
But the truth is there will always be one more dish to clean, one more meal to cook, one more garden to weed, clothes to mend, furniture to dust, and on and on and on.
So we're caught in a trap. Because at the same time that we're all running hither an yon in a doomed quest for El Dorado, or Excalibur, or Happily Ever After (pick your metaphor) our society teaches us to abhor the actual
doing of anything!
I mean, think about it. We're constantly bombarded with messages that say "Buy our product so you can get quickly past the horrible
doing of XYZ, and get on to the meaningful part of being
done." We don't go to school to engulf ourselves in the experience of learning, we do it to "get a degree." We buy pre-packaged food so we can skip arduous step of cooking. We study "time management" and "productivity" and we all become experts at "multitasking" so we can quick hurry and cross more things off of our lists. We surround ourselves with lawnmowers and weed whackers and automobiles and countless home appliances all in a doomed effort to get us to some destination quicker, easier or somehow better.
But where does it all leave us? In my opinion it leaves us empty. On some level we expect the everything should be accomplished
now (or preferably yesterday), so we feel like failures before we even begin. We run ever faster, and it seems like there is just never enough time. But in our frenzy to get everything
done, it seems we have forgotten that our life is really comprised of the
doing.
The Buddhists have a saying that goes something like this:
Before enlightenment: haul water, chop wood. After enlightenment: haul water, chop wood.
Now I would never hold myself up as a paragon of Buddhist thought or mindful living. God knows I struggle with the hurry monster and the desire to "accomplish". But the more I can slow myself down, the more I really
experience my life. And the more I do that, the more joyful I become. Doing the dishes is actually quite enjoyable when you're really experiencing the
doing of it rather than standing behind yourself with a whip trying to make yourself do it faster.
You see, our life's work will never be finished until our lives are over. The land of "done" is really the land of "dead". And if your whole life is spent trying to get somewhere, you're missing the boat, because there is nowhere to get... life is about experiencing what you are doing right here, right now, because that's the only thing that is truly real.
I'll be reminding myself of this next time I'm faced with a kitchen overflowing with dirty dishes...