Now or Never . . .

How big is your list?

You know, that list you keep on your PDA or on your fridge or in your daytimer? It's the one that keeps you staring at the ceiling at night, bouncing from left brain to right brain like nagging game of ping pong wondering when you're going to accomplish something.

My list is huge. And scattered. It includes everything from setting up my next travel schedule (one for work, and one for pleasure) to taking the trash out to the road before I drive to Atlanta tomorrow. It includes things like:

• Start 9 Internet Businesses -- not just one, but 9.
• Finish scanning 25,000 pictures, then caption and keyword, then submit to five different agencies.
• Go the gym at least twice a week.
• Finish my friend's website.
• Buy not one, but two, new Harley Davidson's.
• Hike the Appalachian Trail.
• Install the light over the kitchen sink . .

. . .  And on and on and on.

About once every three months, I write it all down. Then I get depressed. I'm never going to get this done I think. But I make sure I write down what I've completed as well and try to see where I've made progress on the list.

A company I contracted with once created an entire infrastructure around the list -- really it was a project plan, but with daily status. It was called the "Doneness Matrix." What level of "Doneness" had we achieved that day. That kind of discipline fascinates me. And alludes me.

A friend of mine coming out of a 7-day fast (see comment about discipline above) sent me a note yesterday about his list. Maybe because he was starving, or maybe because he's brilliant, or maybe because he's plugged into The Source, his comment was profound . . . and simple as all profound statements are:

"I have been guided to see the 'list of things to do and/or want to do' as the Joy of life. In fact the list is LIFE. However, only the NOW is eternal. My inability to be in the NOW instead of into the LIST is my cutting edge. If I get real quiet, I see that much of my discomfort is a deep focus on the LIST as if my happiness lies just beyond the LIST. The LIST will always be there as I am a human in progress. My happiness depends on how fully I am engaged in what I am doing NOW."

Don't you hate it when someone points out the obvious, and it hits you between the eyes like you've never seen it before. Of course, it's about the NOW. What else is there, but the NOW?

Hello Future and Past!

I spend most of my time in the Future or the Past much more than the NOW. Yet logically, only the NOW is important. Everything else has either happened already (and there's nothing I can do about it) or hasn't happened yet (and probably isn't worth worrying about.) By worrying about what I did or may do, I'm not focusing on what I am doing.

And this has always been a fact for me: Right now, everything is fine. Even in the worst of times, if I can focus on the moment, no more, everything is fine.

In another simple, yet profound book, I've just read, "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie, early on she states that ALL suffering comes from wishing things were different.

Wow, I spend a lot of time wishing things were different, like my list. I wish it were shorter, done, more focused. But it is what it is. And if I make it the joy of my life, then maybe I'll reach a new level of "Doneness" too.

I'll add that to my list.