What does President Obama’s suggestion we curb our national oil addiction share in common with the premise of the cool book I’ve just now added to my book recommendations? The belief that change and transformation are possible. And, the underlying belief that we can cultivate happiness, a sense of sufficiency and ‘enoughness’, without always chasing after more.
The ‘more’ addiction looks different in different people. While I would feel no sense of suffering if I could never again fly to a foreign country (uses a great deal of oil), and I’ve never been plagued by cravings for expensive jewelry or designer clothes (here is my general take on Sex And The City) I do the time poverty thing.
For instance, this morning I would love to go running, work on my novel, write my mom and sign up with Northwest Natural Gas for their Smart Energy program for our new house (we’re moving in tomorrow). All that, plus getting dressed and eating breakfast, before I start my work-day. In addition to having already spent 90 minutes on the new book review and this post. Clearly, unrealistic. Compulsive, if I were to insist on it all. I have to let go of some of those things, at least for this morning. More is not necessarily better. In many cases, it’s crazymaking.
OK. I worked on my novel, Revelle, last night, so tomorrow is soon enough to work on it again. The other items can probably all fit if I make it a short run. But I’ll need to be flexible, because I can’t control what might arise unexpectedly. I’ll keep cultivating that crucial faith in the ‘enoughness’ of my time.
Related Posts:
- Renewables Are Not Sugar-Daddies, But Equal-Opportunity Lovers
- The Choices We Do And Don’t Have
- Embracing Change
- On Revolution And Addiction
- Private Empire: Feast Of Data, Famine Of Vision
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I can relate, and the media isn’t helping things by making ‘busy-ness’ a kind of new-normal baseline for our general American state of being. Have you seen MSN’s new “The New Busy” ad campaign to promote their e-mail/web tools? Ugh. This kind of thing promotes that.
I try and remember that oftentimes it’s not necessarily about the amount of time spent, but the quality of that time in terms of impact … getting signed up with the NW Natural smart-energy program, for example!