Questioning “Productivity”

Annual Planner 2017

May 1, 2017

Moving to Angola and especially getting out of full-time employment were long time dreams for me. However, I’ve noticed myself missing the structure of a job. The first few times that emotion arose, I was surprised.  I watched it and decided to see what I could learn from it.

I noticed an addiction to my to-do list. An obsession with ticking things off of it. A strong sense of frustration when a day manifested in such a way that nothing got crossed off the list.  A strong sense of satisfaction when many things did get crossed off the list.

Annual Planner 2017

My gorgeous planner: I love that its beautiful and has my name on it. And I love the tactile experience of writing things in by hand and crossing them off and turning pages. One page = one day.

Now, to be honest, my visions of escaping full-time employment were not about laying around on beaches, being fed bonbons by under payed minions.  It was about being able to do in any given moment what my heart said was the right thing that needed to be done in that moment.  Being able to really learn to listen to my heart, and allowing my heart to know that I would listen to it and trust its direction, so that it would keep giving me guidance.  And now there are certainly days where my heart gives me some suggestions as to what to do, and then the day evolves in a way that doesn’t allow for that to happen.  And then I need to learn to remember to return to my heart and ask, “Now what do you suggest?”  And then there are just days where my old conditioning of what it means to be productive weighs heavy and I feel this sense of frustration that I didn’t “do” anything today. That I wasn’t “productive”.  And on those days I am learning to take a deep breath and be grateful for all the beauty that I was able to witness.

 

Starting the compost pile

Starting the compost pile

I had several days on the farm recently where I was obsessing over making sure we got the compost bin started, that we got the banana trees planted (I know right? Who stresses over planting banana trees?? ME!), that we started terracing the area behind the njango.  Then one day, I stopped, took a deep breath, looked at Claudio and said, “We are living the dream.”  For 7 years, Claudio and I talked about one day moving to the farm.  And now we were on the farm, getting started. Slowly but surely, but we are here now.  Living the dream.

 

Still sometimes obsessing over the to-do list, but more frequently, remembering to step back, connect with the larger vision of peace, love and connection and acknowledge, “I’m living the dream.” Compost will happen when it’s time.

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