Your Life in Pictures - What Would it Look Like

This morning our Minister, Matthew Ruttan, started his sermon like this:

"Imagine the words and actions and secret thoughts of your life represented pictorially and pinned up on the walls of a big room. It is your own personal art gallery; but instead of just the best of your life on display—the most remarkable memories, the anniversaries and achievements, the acts of charity, the prayer and moving of mountains against all odds—there are also the worst: The failures, the transgressions, the regrets. And I don't just mean the visible things, the things others might know, public things others can track down in the caverns of memory; but the invisible things. The hateful thoughts; the secret feelings of pride and power; the prejudice. Those things we hope no one will ever know. The things even we ourselves sometimes pretend are not really there. It is the art gallery of your heart."

I don't know about you, but if I was building a gallery of "my life in pictures", I'd prefer to pick out just the really good bits.  The thought of pictures of the not-so-good-bits on display for everyone to see is not good, not good at all.  Imagine if a picture of every unkind thought you ever had about the person who sits next to you at work was suddenly displayed in the lobby of your workplace.  What if every unkind word you have ever spoken to your spouse or your children played on a continuous loop at the grocery store where everybody knows your name? 

I betting none of us would come out on the good end of this kind of gallery, but I'm also betting that it would change the world more quickly than wars or diplomacy ever will.

This afternoon, I was thinking about what some of the pictures of my life would look like - not the really great stuff or the really disappointing or unkind stuff,, but just more of an average month or year.  I really started to think about what the days looked like that led me on this happiness quest.  It made me think of a couple of great things that Gretchen Rubin discusses in The Happiness Project.  Several times throughout her happiness project, she reflected on a simple but profound statement:  "the days are long, but the years are short".  She figured out that while she could choose to do anything she wanted, she couldn't do everything she wanted to do, so she was determined to do more of the things that she enjoyed and less of the things she didn't.

I have always been one of those people who doesn't know when my "plate" is full and so I tend to keep heaping commitments on top of commitments.  Last December, I started to figure out that all these commitments were making me tired and resentful.  Not only was I not enjoying much of anything I was doing, I suspect that I was siphoning off enjoyment for others as well.  A negative attitude is contagious.  Determined to stop bringing others down to the level of my discontent, I took stock of what I was doing and here's what I figured out:

1) Working way too many hours - so many that my long suffering husband finally started to hint that I needed to cut back - apparently bringing my work laptop to bed so I could just finish "something" off wasn't his idea of a restful conclusion to the day (go figure!)

2) Singing in a fabulous choir that I had been in since 1992 and that I loved, but over time the choir had morphed into doing major choral works so challenging that they required hours of additional rehearsal and personal practice time. I felt guilty because I couldn't commit to the extra rehearsals and felt guilty thinking about taking a break.

3) Playing in a community band that was playing music just slightly too challenging for me, thus requiring extra practice time that I couldn't find in my schedule.  Felt guilty because I was the only one on my part and I wasn't really mastering it.

4) Hosting a big meal for every special occasion for my large extended family - I love my family deeply but I put way too much pressure on myself for every detail to be perfect.

5) Curling on a recreational team with my husband - I love curling more than any other sport but it was virtually impossible to make our 5 pm games and I knew that I was not holding up my end of the team.

 

6) Trying to keep my house as immaculate as my mother's, or at least as immaculate as my sister's.

As I typed up that list, I could actually see the pictures of me dragging my feet to all of these activities - looking less and less engaged and more and more irritated.  It is truly a wonder that I still have any friends left at all.  Over the last several months I have made a lot of improvements.  I think it's safe to say that now when I do the things I've chosen to do, I am doing them with happy enthusiasm - much better for everyone, I think.  Here's what I've changed:

1) I get paid to work 35 hours a week.  Over the past 5 years, I had worked so many unpaid overtime hours that it added up to more than 4,000 hours.  As  much as I love my job, this overtime effort was not sustainable.  I'm now working not more than 40 hours per week (subject to operational exigencies, of course!) and have made an amazing discovery - I would not ever have expected this, but my productivity has soared. Rest + Happy = Successful.

2) I stopped singing in this big community choir.  I felt guilty at first (not sure why but guilt seems to be a big theme) and I do miss the challenge but I don't miss feeling guilty about missing rehearsals.  I have joined the little church choir that my sister directs.  It's fun, it's easy, and the people in this little choir are delightful...and I'm pretty sure that to God, we sound like angels singing :-)

3) I stopped playing in this big community band and am playing in a smaller band.  The director of the new band is marvellously musical and he likes us and thanks us for coming out :-).  I can readily master the music and every practice leaves me humming all the way home.

4) Now giving up the big family get togethers is really tough for me.  I'm the only one who still hosts them because they mean so much to me.  I think in a few years  as kids grow up this will be important to everyone again.  For now though I am floating out the idea of hosting one big Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas picnic at a local park in the middle of summer, where nobody will care whether or not I cleaned my house.  We'll all be more rested and able to enjoy one another.

5) I quit curling - simple as that.  Sad as that....But happily, my husband quit that league, too, so we are back to Friday date nights and that was a tradition worth reclaiming!

6) Have realized that this is a standard that I will not achieve until I stop working full time - so in about 13 years my home will sparkle.  Until then,  guests will have to overlook the occasional dust bunny and a wee bit of clutter.

Already, the pictures that I am creating for my "gallery of me" are much lighter in colour and brighter in theme.  Sorry to those of you who had to see the earlier pictures...