Having enough time for everything that matters
Especially toward the end of the calendar year, here are some things that can quiet our "never-enough time" tendencies
We’re getting close to the end of the year.
How’s everything going with you?
The older I get, the more I find certain things we do every day as … odd.
Our relationship with the checklist, is one of those strange things.
Take a look at this story. You might be familiar with it.
“On her arrival Aladdin was ready to receive her at the entrance, and led her into a large hall, illuminated[193] with an infinite number of wax candles, where a noble feast was served up. The dishes were of massy gold, and contained the most delicate viands. The vases, basins, and goblets were gold also, and of exquisite workmanship, and all the other ornaments and embellishments of the hall were answerable to this display. The princess, dazzled to see so much riches collected in one place, said to Aladdin, "I thought, prince, that nothing in the world was so beautiful as the sultan my father's palace, but the sight of this hall alone is sufficient to show I was mistaken."
-Project Gutenberg's The Arabian Nights Entertainments, by Anonymous
Aladdin and the princess weren’t necessarily greedy.
But as lovers of each other—and of art—they were dazzled by all things beautiful.
How could they not? And if they deserved it, why not?
I remember growing up, all I care about at the end of the year … is the gifts. I couldn’t help it. Everywhere I turned, there was always something. My family was middle class. So we could afford some stuff. But definitely not everything.
I remember going shopping with my mother once. She was always generous. But once, there were these backpacks. Everybody at school had them. Well, it felt like everybody did. And I was the only one in my group who didn’t. Looking back now, that backpack was unnecessarily expensive. Just to give it an idea, they would’ve cost me my whole month of lunch money.
But I begged my mom nonetheless. It went something like this:
Mini Thalia: Mom, can I puh-leaaaase get this? Everybody at school has it!
Mother: Don’t you already have a backpack?
Mini Thalia: I do … but not this one.
Mother: And your current backpack is still in great condition, isn’t it?
Mini Thalia: Yes, but it doesn’t have all these cool pockets, Mom!
Mother: … [a long, wordless pause while she looked at me knowingly] …
That pause …
Sometimes utter silence is all that it takes for us to listen to neglected voices in our own heads. The few seconds of silence did make me come to my senses. Mom ended up surprising me with it a few months later. But not before I really thought things through. This habit she formed changed me. It made me have an unquenchable curiosity. Especially towards things we just accept.
Because the deeper question is …
Why do we always feel like nothing is ever enough, especially in the US?
Even those who obviously have enough.
Tales of kings and queens all talk about this.
Even today, people at the pinnacle of their life’s work, experience this. There’s always a quest to be conquered. An unrequited love. An unfulfilled destiny. And then whatever comes next.
These days, it looks different. But at its core, it’s the same.
“It’s like we’re chasing all those stars. Who’s driving shiny big black cars.”
- Secrets by Old Republic.
We still want the same things. And yet, when we do get to where we wanted, we’re unsatisfied. Unfulfilled, even.
How come?
And why do people tend to lose themselves when—or even after—they reach their life goals?
“I was struggling … As my career reached its pinnacle, when it came down to other aspects of my life, I was at my lowest. Healing some emotional wounds. I was suddenly hit with near constant panic attacks, depression, I was having a very difficult time sleeping and managing my emotions.” –Andy Johns on Lenny’s podcast.
Andy isn’t alone.
The first time I questioned things like this, I was in a bathroom stall. After I reached what people would call “the height” in my profession.
Firstly, how strange is it that reflections like this only happen ‘when we have a minute’? Like in the least reverent place reserved only to trash our dump!
Maybe because …
Getting everything we ever wanted is good only for a brief minute.
For what it’s worth: It’s plain poo.
I think inside we know this. And yet,
We go through life like the checklist is our life. And we do battle with it. And we punch our fists in the air when we’ve won.
It’s like we’re in a never-ending battle.
A gladiatorial battle with the checklist system
I have mixed feelings about the checklist.
Sometimes it helps to see a framework. Sometimes it’s an obstacle. It chops things up. To the point that it breaks my momentum.
In other cases, forgetting just ONE thing on the checklist is a matter of life or death.
Because sometimes we have things to do in the -illions, the checklist was born. And rightfully so. Especially for high-risk situations like in US Air Force’s Combat Command.
But I wonder if now, the checklist had become a thin lifeline. We even use it to remember the lowest-risk tasks that don’t need the checklist. Like buying toilet paper.
We’ve taken what was designed for the military. And applied militant force onto the mundane. It works. Until we feel detached from it. Ruled, almost, by it.
Take another story.
This time, an excerpt from the brutal world creation story in ancient Tagalog folklore.
This so frightened the children that they fled in different directions, seeking hidden rooms in the house -- some concealed themselves in the walls, some ran outside, while others hid in the fireplace, and several fled to the sea. Now it happened that those who went into the hidden rooms of the house later became the chiefs of the islands; and those who concealed themselves in the walls became slaves.
Creation Myths from the Phillipines by Professor D.L Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh
We can laugh all we want at how ridiculously inappropriate these stories might sound. But sports like rugby, bull fights, and even American football all point to the same thing.
We are in a gladiatorial fight.
If not with other people, then with ourselves. If not with ourselves, then with the check mark. And with the bucket list created from this programming.
Here’s one fact to prove it: During a Roman gladiator fight, the referee is called … an Editor.
An Editor!
I mean … What!?
Even today’s simple act of writing, texting, and sending something—isn’t exactly battle-free. It’s blood-stained with our internal Combat Command.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that to be free of this programming, we just totally ditch the checklist. Or even the bucket list.
At the very least, these lists do temper our sense of claustrophobia. And they give us peace in knowing that there’s a framework in facing the unknown.
The Punch List: the admission of human error in trying to have enough time for everything that matters.
Even seasoned builders, aviators, and space-oriented minds need a checklist.
They know human error is a problem. But they are determined to prevent it.
Fundamentally, this is an act of service. To have the humility to self check and even subject ourselves to over-reliance on the list itself.
Perhaps this is why at the end of construction, builders look to what they call the “Punch List.”
The first time I heard of the “Punch List”, I had a visual of burly men chest pumping and fist bumping. Maybe some of them do. And if they do, I’d probably just watch from a distance. Because if I join, I’ll get squashed like a ladybug.
But I was wrong about the Punch List.
The punch list is the very last itemized list of everything that needs to get done, that for some reason, got overlooked during the build.
Some years ago, I was walking through a construction project with the project manager. I remember he, the fire-safety inspector, and I all had this Punch List in our hands.
You know that compulsion of wanting to see something checked off? That was me. And multiply it by 10,000 times. Maybe it was my upbringing. But I immediately defaulted to wanting to cross everything.
The project manager and the inspector, though, had a few different approaches.
Approach of an Overseer: The Punch List is a birds-eye view manual.
Not a manuscript with zero deviation that allows us to coast on auto. In this way, items that are not life or death on the Punch List only need to be good—enough. Never perfect. Just good enough. Almost like we have oversight of our list. Not even inner
Approach of an Inspector: The Punch List is a place for admission of the human factor.
It’s a visual place on which we’ll see, admit, and even edit our errors. Hard to swallow if our ego pushes us into perfectionism. And I’m the first one to say I’m guilty of this. But it’s freeing if we admit that human error is allowed. And even expected. Then there’s the …
Approach of a Maker: The Punch List is where human error turns into superhuman matter.
When we’re seeing someone and saying, “How on earth did they do that!?”—this is what I mean. A rough manual is easier to use as a springboard. There, we can separate what matters from the immaterial. Starting from total void is usually the hard part.
But with a Punch List, you can take what matters. Then make adjustments. Improvements. Marvels. And look back at the list as a yardstick.
For how you’ve turned an act into art.
When I was ripping through my list like it’s a gladiatorial battle, I mistakenly acted like a Destroyer. I was killing things and emitting smoke up the atmosphere.
But a maker turns their combat command programming to ‘destroy’ their checklist—and their kill instinct—into the care-taking nature to make, evolve, and deviate. Especially when their plan doesn’t work.
We have just a few weeks left in the calendar year.
I hope this helps you look at your lists differently.
Next week: What’s upcoming
I’ll be covering The $1.5 million letter from a world-thinker: on starting (and finishing) just about anything, with a look at first and last words in timeless texts.
This would be a great one to look into for your end-of-year efforts.
More soon,
-Thalia
Interesting observation on the lack of social media addiction. Going back to the inherent nature where the group tends to operate more as a group than an individual I suppose?
“ Why do we always feel like nothing is ever enough, especially in the US?”
Good entry—the answer is pretty simple why, relating to my current post on the thread we’ve been on :) — because the entirety of the culture is focused on ultra individualism, and amassing power and goods, with basically no social contract that was ever established in the society (to the extent it exists, it is pretty much by accident and/or relating to direct opposition by groups that were usually labelled as “radicals” at the time—e.g. socialists being largely responsible for the existence of the weekend and labor laws), unlike every other developed country that exists, and ALSO without a sense of cultural heritage, roots, or forces that bind people together, as in the case with most traditional societies, due to homogenization and assimilation towards this end, combined with the twin dark stains that the country was founded on 1) slavery leading directly to much of the wealth at America’s initial stages and into the end of the 1800s (semi addressed, but still deeply unequal), and 2) outright genocide as an official policy of native peoples at both the federal and state level (has barely been addressed, and is barely in the consciousness of most Americans—I see new legislation is JUST now coming into effect that only allows the display of native artifacts in museums etc. If permission is obtained from said tribes)