My [not] to-do list

I have a friend who likes to make me feel guilty about not accomplishing stuff in my life every day. Try as I might, I cannot budge her thinking that everyone must have a never-ending to-do list.

I have tried to point out that for me, the purpose of a to-do list is to get to the end of it, thereby having nothing left “to do.” For her, the purpose of a to-do list is to tick things off so she can continue adding more and more to it. I accept that this is her God-given personality. I just wish she would accept that mine is also valuable and God-given.

It comforts me to read some of the quotes I’ve collected on combating stress and taking time to relax.

“The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on,” wrote Elbert Hubbard.

How wise of Elbert Hubbard to recognize that stress can send you right into the loony bin. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton also realized this:

“We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves.”

“Take rest,” said Ovid, “a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” I believe God meant something like this when he commanded us to rest one day a week. How many of us really do that, though? To be honest, for me, sometimes the rush of getting to the worship service and putting dinner on the table afterwards makes the day a dreaded chore rather than a welcome reprieve.

Even Winnie-the-Pooh, one of the wisest characters I know, understands that we need to reach the end of that list at some point, as seen in the following advice from Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne
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“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering”

But in our Puritan-inspired zeal to work hard, we forget that

"A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward." (George Jean Nathan)

Without rumination would we even notice the beauty in the world? I’m quite sure we would never imitate it in our art. Steven Halpern made an interesting observation about our modern-day need for stimulation and busyness:

“When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan's Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies adds to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment.”

I’m not sure if I actually believe the bit about our bodies being out of wack, but maybe there’s something to it. Think about most of the sounds God created: the whine of a cricket (or a horde of them), the sound of moving water (or an ocean), even an angry shout – none of them can be heard over the average decibel of most audio equipment. Were our bodies designed to hear anything louder than the relatively short thunderstorm or even a room full of people shouting?

Don’t get me wrong; I grew up in the 70’s and like amplified music as much as today’s teens, but there is still something in my soul that needs to hear nothing more than the sounds of nature – at least once in a while.

So I will revel in my recognition that it is good to be still. When my daughter is grown, she will probably not remember how many times a month I vacuumed but she will remember the times we laid together on my bed, making her stuffed animals talk in funny voices.

It’s good to be in the company of so many others who recognized that ticking off items on a “to do” list is not the reason we were put on this earth.