If you don’t have time to do it right now, when will you have time to fix it later?
This quote, remembered from long ago, surfaced in my mind as I walked away from my car Friday morning. The car, parked in front of a stranger’s house, sat waiting with an empty tank for me while I trudged back home on foot. I wasn’t far, may be a mile and a half, but more than I had planned on walking. This is what happens when you get so over extended that you keep putting off getting gas because you “haven’t got the time now.” How ironic that it happened the morning I had set aside for working on drafts of my “time to change” mini-course on time management to help people get their lives back in balance. Knowing better and doing better aren’t always one and the same thing.
I was determined not to be undone by my stupidity though. When I got home I found an empty house. Our other car and my wife were gone and not responding to phone calls. So, I strapped a gas can to the handle bars of my bike and headed back to the car. The whole way, I praised God. Isn’t that what we are suppose to do? Praise him in all things? Well, I decided running out of gas qualified as one of those “things”. I praised God for the beauty of the weather. I praised God for the health of my body and the opportunity to walk and ride on a beautiful day. I praised God that it wasn’t far, that I had a bike and that I had a gas can with enough gas in it to get me to service station. It didn’t take long for me to find myself once again behind the wheel of my car, the tank full, air conditioner blowing and the bike tied in the trunk. Praise God.
So, how does a guy researching and writing about time management manage to run out of gas? It’s easy. He failed to practice what he preached when a surge of unexpected activity came his way. This past week became a crunch week despite my very best efforts at planning. Sometimes a crunch is unavoidable. I only get concerned if I start living from one crunch into the next, so that it becomes a life cycle. God never intended for us to just go non-stop. Having a Sabbath is a commandment and for good reason, without it you will find yourself out of gas, not unlike my car. You will implode mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually if you don’t give yourself pause from time to time. You will also fail to honor God. I didn’t necessarily implode. In fact, I think I handled the whole self-imposed mess fairly well. Nevertheless, the whole inconvenience could have been avoid if I had been living just a wee bit slower.
I had the presence of mind to take some corrective measures. I ditched some productivity goals I had for the day and instead took my son out of school and out to lunch. This morning (Saturday), I snuck in a half hour of yoga and later in the afternoon snuck in a short jaunt into the woods. I found a nice tree and sat beneath it just breathing for about a half an hour. I almost fell asleep. The soothing sound of wind in the trees along with the joy of solitude was incredibly restorative. In order to make time for this respite I had to scrap a few goals for the weekend or at least push them back. I don’t regret it at all. I needed the time with God. The Lord is so good and kind when we will just give Him a little time. My moments in the woods were precious and put everything else into perspective. When I first sat down I actually had a hard time resting. My internal momentum was still rather cranked up. By the time I left I was un-cranked. I was carrying a new found peace. Actually, I was allowing an old and familiar peace to breath inside of me once again.
As for my goals: I was going to launch my mini-course on Monday, but realized that frantically pulling it off would be antithetical and a bit hypocritical to the whole point of the course. I have opted instead to hold off and launch it on September 15th. This will give me time to both do it right and not forfeit being a human being because I am too busy being a human doing.
Lastly, don’t forget to listen in on my conversation with Laurie Beth Jones about growth barriers. That will be Monday, August 30th, 10:30 a.m. C.S.T. Here is the link for it. You can click on it to listen during the show or go there now and set up an automatic reminder.
Click here for the Laurie Beth Jones Show with John Arnold, discussing barriers to growth.
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