The List

Aparigraha means non-grasping and is usually thought of as non-hoarding or non-greed.  This is the topic of the month at our center, so I have been thinking about it a lot.

I have trouble on my days off that is related to grasping.  I feel so busy at work that I eagerly await and cherish my days off, but often end up being even busier on these days than on my work days.  I have long lists of things I want to do.  Today, for instance:  write, ride my bike, knit, take the dog to the dog park, go to my nephews’ piano recital, run some errands, read, meditate, watch the first stage of the Tour of California and have some time to do nothing.  And that doesn’t even include all the things too mundane to put on the list like eating and brushing my teeth!

Sometimes this grasping after so many activities is overwhelming and I end up doing very little.  This paralysis usually involves a lot of conversation in my head about how if I do this, I can’t do that, and if I do that, I won’t be able to do this other thing.  And some amount of resentment about how I can’t just relax and enjoy my day off because of the pressure of this list of things to do (that, of course, I created myself). 

Today, I decided to ride my bike and before I could change my mind, I got geared up and headed out.  What I noticed several times during the ride was that I was checking the time and calculating when I would get home and how much time I would have before the piano recital and what I thought I could do in that time.  Fortunately, when I noticed what was happening, I was able each time to let it go and come back to riding my bike.  But it highlighted the other thing that happens when I am grasping after checking things off my list, which is that I don’t actually enjoy doing the things on my list.  It takes me out of the present moment and makes every activity just a task to be completed so I can cross it off.  Not very much fun.

At the heart of grasping is a sense that if I have more, I will be o.k.—a looking outside for happiness.  But it doesn’t work.  I can miss my whole life while I busily complete my chores and projects, only to end up at the end of the day wondering where it went and often with a whole new agenda of things to do.  There’s a control aspect to grasping for sure—if I can do enough, have enough, know enough then I’ll be prepared, I’ll be safe, I’ll be happy.  So I have my list to feel in control, but instead the list controls me.  All of these things I love to do and yet a feeling of not enough. 

I’m probably not going to stop having long lists because I do have lots of things I like and want to do.  But rather than having the list be a way to check out, I can use it as a way to check in.  When I think of all the possibilities for a day off, what do I want to do now?  What will feed me today?  I can look at the list and make conscious choices about which things I will do and really be there while I am doing them.  How would my days off be different if I could only cross off the things that I did and actually enjoyed?