The Great Reordering

We are all getting a chance to slow down. To pause. And, to breathe a little bit. And, whether you’ll admit it or not, we’ve needed this-for a very long time.

Whether you have a day-job or you simply drive carpool and keep the children from climbing the walls, you work hard. And, with any luck, you get two weeks of vacation each year. Two weeks.

So we kill ourselves all year for two weeks of rest and relaxation? Is that really what we signed up for?

It’s only during that down time that we eliminate some of the noise and distraction of life.

Sometimes while lying on a beach or riding a bike across some idyllic European countryside, I’ll find that moment of quiet. That moment of calm. That moment of clarity.

Where the only sound is the wind in my helmet, the birds singing in the vineyard and the sound of my own breathing. Where my brain finally slows down enough to ask, WTF? 

It’s in these extremely rare moments where I can step back. Create some mental space. Narrow the focus. And, take an existential view of life. 

And ask myself the question: “why do I do-what I do?” And the harder follow up: “if I stopped doing some things, would it matter?”

Isolation

In the midst of this contagion, we are pretty much isolated. Off the hamster wheel.

Perhaps you’ll be surprised by what you miss and what you do not miss. They’re both instructive.  

Truth be told, I was having these kinds of thoughts already. The word “simplify” has been rolling through my gray matter for months. As in, “I need to simplify my life”. But then-and now- I’m struggling to know what that means. 

Hurry Scurry

In this country we are overworked, overweight, over-medicated and overstressed. We’re in a big damn hurry-all the time. All the damn time. We aren’t just in a hurry. We’re in a hurry to be in a hurry. We use apps like Waze so we can hurry even faster.

I recall a trip to Paris with my wife and daughter years ago. We cut through a city park-undoubtedly in a tremendous hurry to get somewhere. Beautiful day. A giant fountain lazily spouted water in all directions. Flowers blooming. Then I saw him. A guy my age. In a nice gray, business suit.

He had removed his suit coat and necktie. They were folded neatly next to him.  His shoes were neatly placed nearby with his black socks stuffed inside.

He was laying on a park bench taking a nap. A nap! In broad daylight. The blasphemy.

I scoffed as we rolled by in a cloud of dust. Lazy frog. No wonder our boys had to run into a hail of machine gun fire on Omaha Beach. The frogs were napping.  

When we travel to Europe we scoff at the culture. Maybe not openly but in our minds we laugh at them. Sitting in cafes. Napping in parks. Their silly months of vacation and 30 hour work weeks. 

And I’m betting those frogs laugh at us, too. Blazing through the park at breakneck speed on our “vacation”. Dragging our kids past the beautiful fountain and garden without even a pause to appreciate it’s beauty.

Meanwhile they pause during their workday to rest. And enjoy the fountain. And, enjoy the flowers we should have been enjoying. Ironic, huh.  

See I think getting a chance to slow down is exactly what we needed. We were overdue. Long overdue.

Worry

I know you are worried. I know you are upset. I’m hearing from many of you in the comments you leave behind. And I’m very grateful for it. But in the words of Lord Byron,

See, it was a time for a reordering.  It’s time to answer the question: why do I do what I do?  And, “if I stopped doing some of those things, would it matter?”

The Pruning

We see it in nature. Over time, parts of a tree become weak. Or they grow in the wrong direction; asymmetrical. Sometimes small parts of the tree become diseased.

But the tree cannot prune itself. So those parts of the tree remain. The tree doesn’t grow-or it grows in the wrong direction.  Worst case, the disease takes over and the tree dies. 

There were parts of our lives that needed pruning. That were growing in the wrong direction. That were diseased. But the tree cannot prune itself or even recognize it needs pruning. Like the back of a jacked-up haircut from Supercuts. 

We are overworked, over stressed, over educated, overextended and overboozed. Otherwise how do you reconcile that:

• Almost 25 million American adults have been taking antidepressants for at least two years, a 60% increase since 2010? 

• More than 31 million Americans have Type II diabetes (about 1 in 10). 

I could go on, but I won’t cause you know all this already.

I’m not judging anyone here. I’m simply suggesting that what we’ve been doing isn’t working. All of us.

Our tree needs pruning. Parts are growing in the wrong direction. Parts are diseased. Or parts are simply dead. We just didn’t know it.

The Pain

Our lives have been upended. But they needed to be upended.  Yes, it’s painful. But pain is exactly what we needed. 

See, pain is instructive. Pain focuses the mind. It causes us to narrow the focus. Like a sniper looking through a scope. Removing all extraneous distractions from her field of vision, except the target.  Focus. 

As the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu wrote, “new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” Chew on that one for a minute.  

See pain can be viewed as punishment. Or pain can be viewed as a gift from God. An overdue opportunity to re-prioritize our lives. In the words of Maxime Legace’:

So what are we to do with this pain; this gift?

As my friend, Chris Holmes wrote recently, “the coronavirus crisis has revealed all the false or inadequate helps and hopes in which we have trusted. Maybe it was our bank account. Or our control over our schedule. Or our own freedom and ability to move about. Whatever these false hopes might have been, the events and anxieties of the last two weeks have shown their inadequacy.”

In my last story I suggested that that the antidote to restlessness is stillness. Well, depending on where you live, you’ve got a whole lotta stillness to contemplate.  So take a minute of quiet. A minute of meditation or prayer. Put the phone down. Turn off the idiot box (TV). 

Go back and ask yourself the two questions I posed at the outset of this story.

1. “Why do I do what I do?” 

2. “If I stopped doing some things, would it matter?”

Make a list. Share it with me in the comments below or back on Facebook at tomgreeneblog. Trust me, I’ve got time on my hands. You’ll hear back from me.

And maybe we can learn something from each other. Now go wash your hands, my friend.