There’s so much to do. So many items on the ever-expanding to-do list. How can you set priorities and focus on what matters most? How can you whittle the list down to the core – so that your actions and choices align with your heart’s deeper dream?
The wisdom traditions, from around the world, suggest using death as your advisor.
The awareness of death, far from being a morbid preoccupation, illuminates the sacredness of this moment.
I remember teaching a meditation retreat on Maui and waking each morning to the most amazing spider web bedecked in glisten drops of dew. Each drop sparkled like a jewel in the morning sun. The very sun that would cause each radiant drop to evaporate within the hour.
Isn’t every moment as amazing and radiant as a drop of dew – and, as fleeting?
Yes, there’s a lot to do. And awareness of death – which is awareness of the sacredness of this moment – clarifies the relative importance of the items on your to-do list.
Awareness of death brings into sharp relief this moment-to-moment choice: will you devote yourself to what matters most or pour your life into busy-work?
Fidelity to your heart’s deepest dream isn’t primarily a matter of self-discipline or productivity systems. It’s more a practice of remembering – that this life is jewel-like, radiant, and fleeting like the dew on a spider’s web.
Try this alternative to a complex productivity system..
Several times each day pause and as the question that poet Mary Oliver poses:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
And I would add – “And what is a simple, direct choice that will move you in that direction?”
Okay. Go do that.
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Dan Petersen // May 27, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Eric…
Such simple and profound truth.
And, I do love your choice from Mary Oliver’s work.
Thank you… Dan
2 dana buchman // May 28, 2009 at 12:44 pm
what a gift, eric–it’s beautifully put. thank you for the wakeup call.
dana
3 Michael Kovitz // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Here is an additional thought:
There is a ‘to-do’ list, but there is also a ‘to-be’ list. Making sure the later precedes the former is the same as awareness of death.
4 Kathi // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:14 am
What great simple insight – I love the concept.
I also love the use of busywork – I use busyness all of the time in place of the word business when folks get “off task”.
5 Eric // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:41 am
Thanks Kathi
You are the master of the un-busy-nessing of space.
6 Jo Ellen Roe // Jul 27, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I totally love the graphic. I’ve heard this idea expressed many times, but this drawing really brings it home!
7 Eric // Jul 27, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Thanks, Jo Ellen.
It seems we all need to hear the universal truths again and again (I know I do.) Not just to understand them intellectually – but to apply and realize them in the particular conditions of life.
8 Patt Moore // Aug 1, 2009 at 3:49 am
Just today, I stopped myself several times to choose the moment instead of the list…watched 2 of my grandchildren @ surf camp instead of going grocery shopping and played with clay with another grandchild instead of going grocery shopping. (I made do with what I had in the house already and came up with a delicious pesto pasta and salad). These decisions come from knowing that my attention to the people I love and the time spent with them is what is most important to me.
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