At any given moment, we receive countless messages telling us all the things we need to do. We are misled by an idea that success is dictated by accomplishments and the completion of an endless to-do list.
Too often, I wholeheartedly buy into that lie. I frantically compose to-do lists and furiously try to check off items. The achiever in me screams loudly that I can’t be enough until I do this and that. Funny thing is, even after I complete the “this and that,” I’ve found that the voice continues to proclaim that it’s not enough. And so, an endless cycle is fed.
Thank goodness the lies of that voice aren’t true, though.
Without doing anything, I have value. I am enough. If we’re honest here, those are difficult statements for me to swallow. If do not have to do anything, where should my focus lie?
“Perhaps it is time that all of us take a few steps back and redefine ‘success’ not in terms of accomplishments but in terms of values. What do you value most in life, and how do you nurture these values through your daily routine of choices and decisions?” - James Shelley
The focus must lie in the being. Do I know who I am? Do I embrace my personal values? Actions ought to overflow simply as an expression of being, not as justification for being. The most successful day may very well be that one in which I didn’t do anything remarkably noteworthy but completely embraced simplicity. We, of course, long to ask -- what exactly did I do that day, then?
It doesn’t matter.
The embrace of a personal value is what matters. The being is enough. And, focusing on the being instead of the doing leads to the life of greater joy.
