Structure and Fluidity

So it’s really been a whole month since I posted!  So many potential topics have come and gone—long-distance skype kirtaning, broken guitar strings, jiffy lube, educational standards, group process, airplane rides, holidays, the new year, focusing, etc.  So what’s happening now?  Well, in some ways, I am still thinking about the same things I was a month ago—I was just telling some friends last night that I am more convinced than ever that commitments are the secret to life.

I took the last week off from working at The Samarya Center so I could work at home on my book, which has been taking a back seat for quite a while.  It was awesome.  I created a structure and stuck to it and was pleased with how much I got done.  So I made a list of things I wanted to do over the weekend, and though it was quite long, I felt optimistic about being able to do it because I was feeling so productive.  When I just decide to do something and don’t have all the internal discussion about it (do I want to do it, am I going to do it, etc.), I have so much more energy to actually do stuff.  It went great yesterday—I did a number of things on my list and still had time for my nephew’s basketball game and some relaxation (which, of course, is often one of the other discussion topics—if I do this, will I have time for this other thing?).

So today, I woke up with appreciation for my re-discovered appreciation for structure and no doubt that I would complete my weekend’s tasks.  I am master of my own fate, a task-completing machine, yes!  What I didn’t take into account is that other people exist in my universe and life is out of my control.  So I spent most of the afternoon helping my husband fix our leaky kitchen faucet and grocery shopping.  While we were out and about at Lowe’s and Trader Joe’s, I could feel my inner control freak doing what she does best—freaking out.  She was not enjoying the fact that her plans were being so callously ignored. 

I managed to keep my cool (sort of).  I don’t want to live my life feeling incompetent and not accomplishing the things I want to do because I never get around to them.  And I also don’t want to be so attached to my plans and lists and schedules that I can’t go with the flow of life.  Somewhere in the middle, there’s a balance.  So I think two of my words for 2011 are going to be structure and fluidity.  It’s sort of like abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (non-attachment).  Discipline and commitment to practice create the structure that gets things done, but non-attachment allows me not to get stuck, which happens to be something I am very good at.  I’m sure we’ll have more coming down the pike on these subjects.

So, now that I have written this blog post, I can cross off 2 out the 5 things I had left on my list today.  I’m sure I can do the rest in the next couple days.  Not too bad.