As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not just a thinker, I'm an over-thinker. I live by lists and schedules and planners. I always have from about age 25 on. The thought of leaving a whole day unplanned would have seemed scary in the past, how would I ever get anything done?, but now I find I'm beginning to enjoy living simply.
I still had to be at my Ladies' Bible Study today. It's where I've been every Tuesday morning (with a brief hiatus when we moved out of town temporarily) for almost 15 years. I've never missed going unless I was out of town or had no way to get there (if the car had broken down that morning). Planning or not, I was going.
When I got home, I made a vegetarian lunch, a salad with cottage cheese and a greens drink. Something the Minimalists said once was, "Eating is not an event." Ever since then, it's easier to look at what I eat as nothing more than fuel, like putting gas in the car. It's not an event, a treat, a comfort, or anything else. It's simply fuel. If I put the right fuel in, my body will respond positively. If I don't, it won't.
After that I thought about what I felt like doing. I wanted to watch a video of a speaker I'd heard about but it's not available just yet, so I listened to The Minimalists podcast like I do every Tuesday (and every other day for a while until I was caught up). I enjoy it, and I usually do important but non-urgent things on the computer while I listen. I heard the same message on the podcast that I heard on Sunday at church. Fear causes us to think delusional thoughts about the past - or put another way - when we remember the past, we tend to forget all the flaws that went with it, and remember it better than it truly was at the time. When I hear the same thing multiple times in a week or less, I tend to pick up on it, think about it, and see how to apply it. I mentioned I was an over-thinker, right?
Afterwards, I got the mail, pet the cat for a while, and did the dishes in the sink. I then read the first few pages of a new book I'm reading. No particular plan, no order, no list, just wandering through the day and thinking, "What should I do now?" I still want to live intentionally, just not slave to a schedule today.
I balanced the checkbook, went over travel plans coming up for both my husband, my son and his soon to be wife, and our anniversary trip in September. Once I confirmed everything was done, paid for, on the planner and calendar, I could let it go for a long time. Nothing more to do there.
It's now mid afternoon and I'm blogging about my day. I have no plans tonight other than to watch baseball, of course. The game is at 6:40pm, I'll plan for that. Otherwise, I don't know what I'm making for dinner - but that's okay if it's not an event. It'll be something we have on hand, something that will use up what needs to be used up, healthy, and something that will fuel my body until tomorrow's breakfast.
It feels nice to let go of my usual rigid list making and scheduling, but I worry without doing that, I'll forget important things. I'll return to my schedule tomorrow, but I think I'll only put 5 or less MUST DO things on my list. I'll do what's both important and urgent, then what's important but not urgent. Once those are done, then I'm free to pursue other things.
I do have a trip to the lake planned this week, but whether I go on Wed, Thurs, or Fri is irrelevant. I'm going alone, so any of those work. I'll go when I feel it's the best day to go.
What would you do on an unplanned day?
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