It’s inevitable that those of us in the Middling Through generation are called upon constantly to do more. Many of us are raising children and even grandchildren while taking care of older relatives. We are probably balancing a demanding job and handling other responsibilities at church, our children’s schools and elsewhere. Some of us may even be studying.
It gets so crazy that many of us, myself included, are in a constant struggle to do less. We are told to say No more often and to set boundaries. We try but when we don’t succeed we end up feeling frustrated and angry with ourselves. Why can’t we get it together? We dream of things that we could do if only we could shake all the ‘Must Dos’. We would garden, we would spend more time with friends and family, we would read and on and on. But life gets in the way, so we don’t.
After a terrible few months battling the Chikengunya Virus I went on Christmas Vacation exhausted emotionally and physically and many pounds overweight because of the inability to exercise or the energy do much of anything but drag myself to and from work. One day I was walking through a store and saw a lovely poster that spoke to me but it was too big to pack so I just memorized the words. In the very next store however I saw those same words on a small wall plaque that could fit and I knew that God was sending me a clear message. It said just these few words “Do more of what makes you happy’. Simple but profound. Don’t focus on doing less – just do more – of the things that make you happy.
But the message did not stop there. Shortly after I was reading an article on resolutions for the new year and it suggested that we avoid focusing on the usual – I am going to lose 20 pounds, I am going to stop eating out so often and so on. Instead, it suggested that we focus on doing more. The idea intrigued me especially since I was now walking by my little plaque several times a day and it was reminding me to “Do more of what makes you happy. What could I do more of? It’s a work in progress but here is what I came up with so far:
– Do more steps. The doctors suggest 10,000 a day. I am trying to get those in at least 4 times a week. It required some juggling – 10,000 steps is quite a lot, but now I’m choosing to walk to places that I would normally drive to, adding to my numher of laps and so on.
– Drink more water.
– Eat more vegetables and fruit. Rather than focus on cutting portions which is a good thing I hasten to add, but tedious for me, I am adding more vegetables. Naturally when you have more vegetables, you have less space on your plate and life for more of other things.
– Linking with at least one friend a week. No more excuses or putting it off until ‘next week when I am less tired’. It’s a goal in my ‘Doing more’ strategy so I am pencilling it in and making it happen.
Combining the two concepts has worked quite well. Doing more of what makes me happy means rediscovering the joy of trying out new recipes and we all know that eating at home is healthier. Doing more of what makes me happy is making me find more time for my garden, and of course gardening involves walking – adding to those steps! I would be lying if I said that doing laps around the park makes me happy, but what does make me happy is listening to an audiobook so I combine the two and get in my steps and my reading at the same time. Even I am amazed at my creativity!
So, over to you? What can you do more of? Is it more of family time? More of ‘You’ time, More of ‘Your hobbies’? Don’t focus on the less of because that leads to a feeling of deprivation. If you do more of one thing you automatically have to do less of others because in the end days still only have 24 hours. I have found that when you do more of what you love and enjoy you are more at peace and less stressed and can manage the rest of your life better.
Doing more of what you love inevitably means saying ‘No’ to what you don’t really love since you really don’t have the time anymore. If we’re in the Middling Through generation it probably means that we have more years behind than in front of us. We can’t waste them in ill health, worry, procrastination and unhappiness. There’s no time like the present – grab your list and start planning to do more!
middlingthrough 