Yesterday and today I was signed up for a conference and training on gambling. I thought, I’m in Las Vegas, it’s free, I should go. I know that voice, the part of me who packs my calendar like a closet that won’t close. I moved clients around, and then yesterday I got in my car, got on the packed freeway and, three exits later, shoulders up around my ears, turned around and went home to spend the day in the art room. I was thinking about how unexcited I was to spend two days in a training on a topic that might be useful but that I was not passionate about. I thought, if I only had 10 years left to live, how would I want to spend these next precious few days… and a gambling conference was nowhere on that list.
We live in an age of too much information. Too many podcasts, too many books, too many trainings, too many choices. Do I really need a whole aisle of toilet paper options and half an aisle of toothpaste options? Even the choice to take less is a privilege. I had a free day and clients who could move; someone with two jobs and a parent to care for cannot turn the car around, and for them less might be one hour that is theirs.
There are FOMO (fear of missing out) parts that arise with their own brand of tension… For me it lives in the shoulders, the same ones that had crept up by the third exit, and in a flicker in the legs that wants to be on the move; yours may be a hand reaching for the phone. I breathe myself bigger so they can rest, then I come home to “what is the truest desire and need in this moment?”
So the question I ask of myself and invite you to ask is: where do I spend my time that is not in service of my truest desire and need? And how can I cultivate less of a life so that I can have more of the life I am meant to live?
May you find the day that is yours.
May your fear of missing out be met with a breath.
May you have less so that you can have more.
May you know restfulness.