What don’t you have time for?

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else– we are the busiest people in the world.
~Eric Hoffer

Ever since I read this quote a couple of weeks ago, it’s been on my mind.

I don’t think I know a single mom who hasn’t wondered at some point or another if she’s ‘wasting her life.’ This existential angst isn’t unique to moms of course- but I’m a mom, I work, play and hang out with mostly moms… so this quote immediately paints a picture for me of the woman racing around all day doing laundry, grocery shopping, meeting on the fundraiser for this or that community event, making phone calls, bringing her kid the forgotten uniform/lunch/homework folder, running and running from early in the morning until late at night.

But we fall into bed exhausted and frazzled instead of with that ‘good tired’ feeling that comes from hard but satisfying work.

So what’s going on here?

We’re doing lots of things that are important and worthwhile. Families need to be fed, beds need to be changed, and it can be very satisfying to be part of a larger community project that we believe in.

Some might say that our dissatisfaction comes from the inherent nature of the daily tasks of mothering and keeping a family running.
After all, in return for his evil deeds, Sisyphys was given a punishment that would seem all too familar to most of the moms I know!
We’re not pushing a rock uphill every day, but tell me if you don’t see the similarities!

We make a meal, and clean up the mess, only to have to do it all over again in a few hours. And everyone knows you can NEVER get all the laundry done. There you are, putting the last pair of socks into the drawer at the end of the day- and the beginning of the next load is sitting on the floor taunting you.

So there’s certainly some justified sense of the insubstantiality, (which is different than futility- at least sometimes!) of our work- it disappears as soon as it’s done, and it’s never done.

But that doesn’t really seem to be the core of why moms often find themselves unhappy, even when they love their families, and love caring for them.

I think it’s the other part of the equation in Hoffer’s quote: What are you NOT doing that you ought to be doing?

Is it to make art or music? To start a business? To plant and nurture a garden? To climb Mount Everest, or run a triathlon? Learn to fly a plane, speak Spanish, or do woodworking? Run for office, go to graduate school, do yoga in India?

For me it turns out to be writing. My days, weeks and life go much better when I am writing regularly.

How about you?

What is that THING you must do?

And what is it costing you not to do it?