My best warning signal is that I lose my sense of humor. I never realized how much of a key indicator that was for me until recent years, but now it's the best barometer of my happiness I have. When I start getting tense and "tight" about everything, and realize people are stepping warily around me, it's time to call a giant halt and figure things out.
In the past I have been much more scattered and stressed, overcommitting myself and then developing fierce ego attachment to getting it all done. All I did was make myself suffer, do each thing poorly if I even got to all of them, let people down, and mostly make C and J miserable. :-/
Eventually I realized that I needed a serious re-evaluation of 1) my understanding of myself, 2) why and how I made commitments and carried (or failed to carry) them out, and 3) my overall priorities in life.
I don't have the reference to hand, but I remember reading a story about Bruce Lee one time, and his understanding of the importance of time. It was basically to the effect that time is the ONLY thing we have, and largely we have complete control over how we spend it. Most of us think we have less control than we have, and he dismissed that - people make their own fences and chains, essentially. He was very, very strict about *who* he devoted time to, and *how much* he gave to anyone or anything, because he knew that the moments that pass are gone. Being who he was, of course everyone in the world wanted a piece of him, and he knew if he got lost in a web of "obligation" and worry about others' feelings or what might happen if they didn't like his response, he was *dead*. He'd be living his life 100% on others' terms and still wouldn't satisfy all of them, much less himself!
This is something I've come to understand on a very, very deep level so that the way I apportion my time has become instinctive. I stay much more tuned in to myself, to those warning signs like my humor, and I no longer feel *any* obligation to people - I either choose to give some of my time to them, because it's good for me to do so on whatever level, or I don't. I no longer commit to things because I think I have to, or because of what someone else thinks or feels or wants. Strangely - or perhaps not - I'm much more reliable now, and the quality of my commitments is much higher. I am more able to give to the people who really enrich my life, and refuse to allow any opening to those who only take from or drain me.
I also let go of the ego attachment to "achievement" - getting X amount of stuff done does not make me a better or happier person. Usually it makes me a much more unhappy and frazzled person, which rebounds with interest onto those dear to me. Pacing myself from a realistic place - not slacking and allowing myself to stagnate, but not taking on too much just to prove I can do it all, has led to a much greater level of peace and satisfaction in the whole family.
So I guess I would say that my goal in the last few years of my life has been to find a place of balance, and clearly identify the things that pull me off that balance and eliminate them. My firm intention is to re-center as soon as I am a few degrees off, rather than when I am spinning and screaming at the center of a hurricane of my own making!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-10-26 12:58 am (UTC)In the past I have been much more scattered and stressed, overcommitting myself and then developing fierce ego attachment to getting it all done. All I did was make myself suffer, do each thing poorly if I even got to all of them, let people down, and mostly make C and J miserable. :-/
Eventually I realized that I needed a serious re-evaluation of 1) my understanding of myself, 2) why and how I made commitments and carried (or failed to carry) them out, and 3) my overall priorities in life.
I don't have the reference to hand, but I remember reading a story about Bruce Lee one time, and his understanding of the importance of time. It was basically to the effect that time is the ONLY thing we have, and largely we have complete control over how we spend it. Most of us think we have less control than we have, and he dismissed that - people make their own fences and chains, essentially. He was very, very strict about *who* he devoted time to, and *how much* he gave to anyone or anything, because he knew that the moments that pass are gone. Being who he was, of course everyone in the world wanted a piece of him, and he knew if he got lost in a web of "obligation" and worry about others' feelings or what might happen if they didn't like his response, he was *dead*. He'd be living his life 100% on others' terms and still wouldn't satisfy all of them, much less himself!
This is something I've come to understand on a very, very deep level so that the way I apportion my time has become instinctive. I stay much more tuned in to myself, to those warning signs like my humor, and I no longer feel *any* obligation to people - I either choose to give some of my time to them, because it's good for me to do so on whatever level, or I don't. I no longer commit to things because I think I have to, or because of what someone else thinks or feels or wants. Strangely - or perhaps not - I'm much more reliable now, and the quality of my commitments is much higher. I am more able to give to the people who really enrich my life, and refuse to allow any opening to those who only take from or drain me.
I also let go of the ego attachment to "achievement" - getting X amount of stuff done does not make me a better or happier person. Usually it makes me a much more unhappy and frazzled person, which rebounds with interest onto those dear to me. Pacing myself from a realistic place - not slacking and allowing myself to stagnate, but not taking on too much just to prove I can do it all, has led to a much greater level of peace and satisfaction in the whole family.
So I guess I would say that my goal in the last few years of my life has been to find a place of balance, and clearly identify the things that pull me off that balance and eliminate them. My firm intention is to re-center as soon as I am a few degrees off, rather than when I am spinning and screaming at the center of a hurricane of my own making!