You Can Do What You Want, Simple As That

This might be the absolute easiest One Thing I could write about for you to Pick. If you’re going to honor and take care of something about yourself, what could be a simpler project than choosing what you do? It’s harder to pick your job, your home, and your friends, than it is to pick your activities. It’s much harder still to pick your family or your economic status or your looks, given how much of those things are (at least partially) outside of your control. But how to occupy your time? Other than your favorite moral and legal obligations, that’s pretty much up to you.

Your Activities
So let’s keep this project simple. Answer some basic questions and we’ll have a laundry list of activities that are worth your consideration. Don’t dwell too long or think too deep--just answer off the cuff, from the heart. You’re not committing to anything at this point, don’t worry. You can say the same answer more than once, or not. You can not have an answer, or you can have several. It’s you, talking about you. No wrong responses.

1. What do you like to do?
2. What have you always enjoyed, since childhood?
3. If you weren’t limited by time pressures, what would you like to do, or do more of?
4. What have you always wanted to try?
5. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
6. What would you do if you only had the talent (or body or money) for it?
7. If you had a whole day to spend on only your own desires, with no restrictions and no one needing you for any reason, what would you do with that day?
8. If you had to pick one thing to do today that was completely enjoyable for you, that you don’t have on your itinerary already, what would it be?
9. What’s on your “bucket list?”
10. If you sensed your time on the planet was increasingly limited, what would you want to be doing with it?

That should be enough investigation for us. If you’re like me, at this point, your list is far too long to be entirely practical in the immediate future. I’m interested in almost everything, it seems. But when I look a little closer, I see some repeating themes.

If nothing else, I can narrow down my list by focusing on questions 7 and 8. When we view our desires through the lens of one day, or one activity that strikes us as doable in the present, then we’re on to something. Case in point: I’ve been bemoaning my lack of reading for pleasure for years now. Years and years. I love reading and have high aspirations for all the reading I’m going to do at some point or want to be doing right now. Yet I don’t make the time for some reason. Many reasons. It’s a great example. Here is an activity that is contained in my answers to 7 of the above 10 questions!

What’s stopping me? Nothing. Literally nothing, on most days, except my lack of effort. My non-choosing. I believe in the idea that, if you show me what you spend your money and time on, I’ll show you your priorities. For me, this activity I love and aspire to, which is so readily available to me, it not a priority.

Now I ask you this: other than unplanned urgent matters, who selects my priorities for me?

So there we go. Nothing is simpler than this concept. It’s life-changing. What do you want to do? And really, what’s stopping you? Got a 20-year project requiring a million dollars you don’t have? Well, if you want to, you can do it. It’s a project. You pick it. Get on the fundraising shtick and start the 20 most purposeful years of your life, then.

On the other hand, make sure you’re actually listening to your heart’s desires; not just assuming what you think you want is what you really want. I know we sometimes feel we’re supposed to want to do things, maybe we’re even good at something so it seems ripe for the picking… but mmmm, nope, if we’re honest, it’s not a real want, it’s a fabricated one.

Therein is the very crux of procrastination as well as all those abandoned unfinished projects. Like how I keep thinking I want to crochet some nice gifts with all the yarn I’m storing. But today I realized, no, I don’t want to. I think I should want to, however “crochet nice gifts” or “use up my yarn” is not on my bucket list, and it’s not what I would wish to spend one whole unencumbered day doing, nor is it something I really want to fit in more of as my time on this planet is increasingly limited.

I believe we allow a small undercurrent of tragedy to exist in so many of our lives, especially caretakers’ lives, which are often the lives of women: we don’t choose to do what we want, even though it is our choice. We don’t agree that what we desire is in us for a reason. We are supposed to do what we desire, though. We need to, in order to be whole and satisfied and purposeful, right? Do we actually accept that we are NOT supposed to do what we wish to do? That we are supposed to live our lives toiling away without any reward in activities that we choose, for ourselves, based on our own wants?

I hope we can make a new agreement with ourselves in this particular project: let’s agree that our life is filled with our actions, and our actions are our choice.

I’d love to hear your comments on this topic….but not until you’ve made a commitment to your own activities, and prioritized them accordingly. According to what you want. And then do them. Don’t forget that part. As for me, now I’m going to read a few pages of the book I started a couple months ago and I’m going to keep doing that, for the rest of my life.