I know people who have lived in the same house all their lives. I’ve heard of people who have standing dates and have for decades. “Oh, yes,†they say, “we have lunch every Tuesday,†or “Sunday night dinner is a tradition — the whole family comes.†Golf dates, bowling dates and church services all require very regular commitment.
I’m in awe, but also befuddled by others’ ability and willingness to do the same thing day in and day out, week after week, month after month. In five decades I’ve lived in at least 14 different places and held 10 different jobs (I’m sure I’m overlooking some). Clearly, I’m not rooted and I don’t have a career. But I do have experience.
Yet, I greatly admire people who can stick to schedules of their own making. I don’t mean people who get up and go to work at the same time every day. I mean those who in their free time commit to an activity or pursuit. (By the way, they benefit from doing something regularly: They get better at it.)
One of my editors swims three times a week, pretty much always. Most successful novelists speak of a routine; they produce because they commit to the same time or amount every day.
I’m reading a wonderful and inspiring book by Haruki Murakami, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.†In the book, he explains his commitment to running. He runs nearly every day — and this is busy guy. As a novelist he’s written 12 books; as a runner he’s completed more than 23 marathons.
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I don’t play golf or bowl, but I do lots of other activities that require practice and commitment; yoga and horseback riding are two of them. Yet I have a terrible time carving out the time to do the things I want. It’s not because I can’t make plans. I’m a big planner, actually. Love lists. I have multiple calendars. Schedules are my thing. I believe in them. I also believe in pencils. Because if I wrote everything in ink, I would need bottles of white-out to keep everything legible.
A friend of mine doesn’t have this problem. When someone asks her to do something at a time when she already has something scheduled, she says no. In the nicest possible way. That’s what I really like. She doesn’t turn herself into a pretzel trying to make everyone happy. She just says, “No. I’m busy then. When else could we do it?†What a concept.
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At a yoga retreat last summer, which was dedicated to hard-core yogis (many of whom were instructors), I took part in a discussion about the difficulty of carving out the time to do this thing we all love so much. The easy part, it seemed, was taking a week off from regularly scheduled life and immersing oneself in yoga. The truly difficult part was trying to find some minutes in our everyday lives to do the same thing.
Is it time management? Or is it clearing the mind long enough to listen and respond? There were suggestions galore: Just do five minutes; make every action (picking up the kids’ sneakers off the dining room floor, opening the refrigerator) a yoga pose; do it first thing in the day; do it last thing in the day. Lots of ideas, no sure-fire solutions. Clearly, I am not alone.
The reality is, every time I make plans, they are likely to change multiple times before they happen. The goal is always reached, but the path to the goal morphs one way and then another, as different factors come into play. Is this a bad thing? Does it make me unreliable or too flexible?
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Recently, I had a real wake-up moment, suggesting we can learn to change our ways. I’d made a date with a friend to walk our dogs, on a day that I knew was going to be very busy. But I figured I could squeeze it in. Even as I was committing I had misgivings, but my assumption was my friend was going for a walk either way and it would be great if I could join her, and if it didn’t work out that way in the end — no big deal; she would still take her dog for a walk.
It never occurred to me (honestly!) that my company might be a factor in her day. That if I had said I wasn’t available she might have found someone else with whom to share her time. I was just focused on the act of the walk.
When I called to cancel only an hour before the meeting time and got her voice mail, I decided to meet her, make my apologies and leave. She was understanding and forgiving, but as I blathered on, she said, “Well, just don’t do it again. OK?†Calm, quiet, sincere. And suddenly I saw the situation completely differently.
So, I have a new resolve: commit, commit, commit.
Tara Kelly, copy editor at The Lakeville Journal, is an avid follower of social trends. She may be reached by e-mail at tarak@lakevillejournal.com.
