Explore.
People often talk about living life to the fullest. It’s one of those phrases thrown around casually and nonchalantly, a generic mantra to live by. I have lately been thinking about what it really means to have a life fully lived. Perhaps it’s the new year, or the alarming number of friends who have loved ones with newly discovered illnesses this month, or just a time of transition for me. Whatever it is, it’s been weighing on my mind.
APPROACH THE NEW YEAR WITH RESOLVE TO FIND THE OPPORTUNITIES HIDDEN IN EACH NEW DAY. – Michael Josephson
I love this quote. It embodies the fresh start that comes with each new year. Many people hate New Year’s resolutions, and the typical half-hearted resolutions probably are something to loathe. But with the start of the new year comes the opportunity to reassess. To stop and think about the past year, the lessons learned, opportunities taken, opportunities missed, happiness, successes, regrets. And to evaluate how we’ll take these into the new year. Rather than making resolutions, I like to take some time to simply be more mindful. Think about the person that I want to be, where I am currently, and what I can do to continue to grow, learn and thrive. It’s a good practice to periodically take the time to reevaluate our trajectory, and why not start with the beginning of the year?
To sleep, perchance to dream.
FOMO is the fear of missing out. FOMOOS is the fear of missing out on sleep! Ok, I made it up. But FOMOOS is what I have. FOMO is a scourge that has afflicted much of my generation and certainly the next generation. When photos and recaps of activities are splashed all over social media at every minute of every day, everyone knows what everyone else is doing all the time. And we get envious of other people having fun all the time (or at least looking like it on social media) and leaving us out. My hubs has FOMO real bad. If you invite him out to dinner or after work drinks or a party or a weekend getaway, he’s probably going to go no matter how jam packed his schedule is. I, on the other hand, am increasingly concerned about how my overpacked schedule is affecting how much sleep I’m able to get. I mused here about how busy we have all become and how much we focus on filling up every minute of every day. One consequence of that way of living is that I start to worry way in advance about how tired I know I’ll be, and it stresses me out. Perhaps this emphasis on sleep is because I’m getting older, or perhaps it’s because I’ve started to focus on living purposefully and with intention, or perhaps it just because I’m hitting my lack of sleep limit?
One thing I do know is that we need sleep! And FOMOOS is a real thing, not just about being a bit lazy. I recently listened to an amazing TED Radio Hour episode that focused on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, one of which is sleep. You know I love TED Radio Hour – I shared here some of my favorite podcast stations and this one one of them. This episode in particular was illuminating. I’ve never thought much about why we need sleep or what sleep does for our bodies, our psyche, our emotions. I’ve spent a LOT of time trying to figure out to how operate on less sleep. For years I have made a New Year’s resolution to train myself to rely on less sleep. I’m not sure that’s possible and I’m quite sure it’s not healthy. I’ve never been someone who needs a huge amount of sleep – never slept in until noon or absolutely panicked if I couldn’t get a full 8 hours a night. But I have realized that I cannot fully function or be the best version of myself on only 4-5 hours a night, and I’m not alone.
BEWARE THE BARRENNESS OF A BUSY LIFE. –Socrates
I am DAMN good at being busy and looking like I love it. I am busy with a big smile on my face. But wow am I tired. All the time. Tired on the weekends. Tired when it’s slow at work. Extra tired when it’s nuts at work. Tired at yoga (if I can find the time to go to yoga). Too busy and too tired. Being busy means something different for everyone, but here’s how the dictionary defines it: Busyness: the quality or condition of being busy; lively but meaningless activity. Ouch, that last part hurt a little. Hits a bit too close to home.
Let’s talk about work. It’s something we all have to do (well, almost all of us, aside from those lucky few). It is often the activity that we do more than any other activity in our day. More than spending time with our families, children, friends, more than eating, more than any hobby that we have. And even more than sleeping. Yes, partner at my firm who shall not be named but who looked at me like I was insane when I said this: I spend far more time each day in my office than I do getting the much needed sleep that will keep my brain functioning through that next turn of the merger agreement. I often spend more hours in any given 24-hour period in my office than I do at all other places in the world outside of that building combined.
Our work/job/career (the name that you give it probably depends how you feel about it) is not only the activity that takes up the biggest part of our day, but it also often takes up the biggest part of our self identity. Our job sometimes [most times?] defines who we are and a huge portion of our self satisfaction, happiness and confidence comes from “what we do for a living.” Within 10 minutes of meeting someone new, no matter who it is that you are meeting or in what context you have met them, they will almost always ask: so, what do you do? We’ve all been there. We all do it. I am guilty of this just as much as anyone else. And so with such a big chunk of ourselves wrapped up in our careers, why is it that so many people are not happy or satisfied with their work? Is it that they like their job function, but don’t like the particular company or organization that they work for? Or perhaps it is their co-workers, managers or bosses that they don’t like? Or is it that so many people are simply working for the weekend? Picking up that paycheck so that they can really live the lives that they love in the book ends of each work week?
The answer to that question, of course, will differ for everyone. And certainly not everyone is unhappy with his or her job. But in my circle of friends and in my professional circle, most people would and do report not being fully happy with or fulfilled by their work.
This one is a hard one for me, because I have never been able to figure out how to balance things in life. I am a person who dives head first into something when I’ve made my mind up to do it, and usually I end up overdoing it – whatever it is – and as a result I live in a pretty constant state of stretching myself too thin and feeling tired. Really tired. All the time. I think it is something that most of us do. We live in a world that is uber connected and uber busy. Information is thrown at us from all directions – email, social media, television, car radio, phone, tablet, and now even our watches (!) – and with all of this information and knowledge and connectivity, we find it increasingly difficult to disconnect, to give ourselves time to breath and recharge and relax and balance the things that we want to do for ourselves with the things that we need to do. At least this is my experience, and the experience of most people that I know, particularly our friends in the Bay Area. But the point of this blog is to figure out how to live with intention, to find purpose and take active steps to achieve those purposes and not to let life pass us by.
As I sit with a coffee on a Saturday morning writing this post, I am feeling guilty that I am not (A) working (the ultimate guilt trip in my life), (B) hiking the beautiful headlands in Marin, (C) doing laundry, (D) taking the furbaby to the park, (E) brunching with friends, or (F) you name it – don’t our to do lists always go on for pages? And then I get stressed because I am feeling guilty and anxious and you can see how the cycle continues.
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