See with new eyes
Over the last few installments of this series, we have been talking about our Little List of Values as the ‘contact lenses’ which enable us to see clearly both our Vision and the road that leads to it.
In today’s article, I would like to go through the practical way our Little List can help us make progress. This is how I’m using it:
I’ve made another list (I love lists, can you tell? 😊💕). A much longer one, comprising all the activities I do on a habitual basis. (Not what I ‘should’ be doing, or what I ‘would like’ to do, only what is actually happening in my life at this stage.)
Then I’ve placed the lists side by side to gain clarity on which of my everyday actions form the road that takes me towards my Vision, and which are actually diverging paths that lead me into the weeds 😊
This is what I am looking for with the two lists – values & everyday actions – side by side:
Are there any superfluous activities in which I am habitually (but fruitlessly) engaging? If there are any such, that have no correspondence to any of the values on the Little List, I can probably discard them with no regrets. I’m not saying some of this type of activities do not have value in any context, but if they don’t match anything on the Little List, it means they are not for the stage of life I am in. Again, I can probably eliminate them without remorse.
Are there any activities missing from my every day? Meaning, are there any values on the Little List that are missing a corresponding action? It would then be a good idea to think what kind of actions would best embody that value, and see how I can include it in what is habitually happening in my life.
There are things we need to do every single day which are non-negotiable: caring for ourselves, for our families, doing our work. Those are there no matter what. When we became grown-up, our new identity as adults brought with it the legitimate expectation that we will be looking after ourselves.
Care for our families, be they our spouse and/or children or other dependents, again is a legitimate expectation that is part and parcel of our identity. Same for our work. (See more about legitimate and illegitimate expectations in this article, if that is a new concept for you.)
I realize that many people will be feeling like: ‘Well, I have no more time left in my day after I’ve done all that work and care! And sometimes I feel like I’m not even done with my duties at the end of the day, nevermind thinking about doing things for myself to move towards my Vision!’.
If you are thinking that, and moreover if you happen to be an Obliger, stay tuned. I hope in the near future to be writing more about how an Obliger can make time in their day. But the very fact that you, my reader, are here reading this, means that, by God’s grace and mercy, you are not right now in a totally dire struggle. It means that there is a little bit of time in your day that you can choose how to spend.
That’s what the next part of the article will be referring to: what we do with the time we can make choices about.
Let’s look a bit closer and notice how all of the subtracting and adding I mentioned before is completely non-threatening and non-burdening.
Subtracting first. The actions I decide to give up are not something that I begrudgingly have to say bye-bye to! It’s not like depriving myself of sweet treats because I’m on a diet or something.
Because I have spent time thinking and thinking about my values and I have only listed those that are my absolute dearest and nearest, I’m not losing anything precious by taking stuff off my schedule that doesn’t match any of them. I’ve already decided what things matter most to me at this stage of my life, and if certain habitual actions of mine do not correspond to those values, I’m better off without them.
Okay, what does it look like in practice for me? I am actually happy to discover that there is only one habitual activity on the list that I cannot in honesty match with any of my values: playing a game on my phone.
Now (not even talking about the dark old days when playing computer games and watching Japanese TV dramas was the only thing keeping me from deciding to depart this world – let’s go directly to the most recent few years) – I used to play Candy Crush, like many other people out there. 😅 Talk about a draining spiral of colourful self-hypnosis! 🤣 (Fortunately, somehow I have never gotten in the way of scrolling endlessly through social media – even when Instagram was at its freshest and loveliest, there was only so much random loveliness I could look at in one go.)
My present phone game is, in a way, the opposite of Candy Crush, in that its mechanism means it can only be played in short bursts. However, in order to stay current with the story and win the event prizes, it also means that in practice I’m playing it every three hours or so, for 5 minutes or more at a time. Yep, it adds up to a lot. And overall, it’s just as addictive.
Since these days (especially with all the lockdowns) we find ourselves glued to our phones more than ever, maybe many of us will discover such activities in our day: we can see they are mostly fruitless and not taking us in the direction of our Vision, but, because of their addictive qualities, it can feel difficult to peel them off and discard them.
Are there any such things in your day? (I’m not talking about big problem addictions, which are messing up your life and your family’s, and are now in the realm of sinfulness: if you know they are there, please seek the help you need.)
I’m talking about the ones that are little soothing dressings for small wounds, little dishes of something-or-other that we hope will feed our hunger for relaxation, diversion, stimulation and novelty.
Such dressings and dishes do have a function. The hunger I just mentioned is real, those are legitimate needs. The question is: does this sort of dressing really do the job of helping to heal my wound? Does this sort of food really satisfy?
In my case, the honest answer is no. Not really. There are actually a lot of other activities I wrote down on my list that fulfill those needs much, much better: making art is the ideal one! Also: reading, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, doing crochet – I have so many things I love to do which allow me to engage my mind and imagination, learn something new, or just disconnect from mental effort and play.
So, bye-bye phone game. You are going out of my life and making more room for much more satisfying play: with papers, colours, glue, fabric and thread.
Uninstalled. Aaah, that feels good! 💗
Great stuff. Next: adding.
Is there anything on my Little List of Values that doesn’t really have a corresponding activity on my Everyday List?
No, but there is one Value that currently only has one activity: Nature. It’s maybe a total cliché, but I love Nature. (To be clear, I do what I can about sustainability, but I’m less of the eco-warrior type and more of the Romantic type.) I love and need to see trees, grass, flowers, sheep, sky and clouds! I’m incredibly grateful to God that I live in a place where I can see a lot of these on a daily basis. Even the sheep are close by, a drive under 20 minutes is bound to take us near some. But at the moment, it’s winter time – I’m out in the garden for 5 minutes at a time to catch some sunlight and that’s it! The only activity on my list that has to do with Nature at the moment is caring for my houseplants!! 😅🌱
Another Value on my list is Wholesomeness. I have lots of activities that correspond to it, but one is conspicuously missing: exercise. I’m not a running-around type of person at the best of times, but add in the lockdown and all significant walking has evaporated from my life. A solution is immediately presenting itself: put some nature walks on the schedule! Exercise and being in nature, wonderful. I’ll let you know how that goes. But it certainly does not feel like: ‘Ugh, one more thing I have to do’ – I’m excited and inspired about doing it! 😊
Okay, this has been already pretty long, but I really wanted to be real and personal about this stuff – and I have just one more thing to point out.
When I made the Everyday List, I of course included the non-negotiable tasks as well. The way I did the value-correspondence exercise was this: I assigned a colour to each of my seven values, and then, as I identified which ones of my values were reflected in each activity (because of course there can be more than one), I marked them with all the corresponding colours. Want to know which activity, besides writing and art & craft, had the most colours next to it? Housework.
Yep, housework. Out of my seven values (Hallowing God’s Name, Wisdom, Handiwork, Nature, Beauty & Serenity, Wholesomeness, Perseverance), a total of five are reflected in the mundane, non-negotiable tasks of doing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning surfaces and scrubbing floors: Hallowing God’s Name (being His representative), Handiwork, Beauty & Serenity, Wholesomeness and Perseverance. Wow.
Housework is not one of my favourite activities, to say the least. I’m not brilliant at it at all, on the contrary. But the more I see how my values are reflected in it, the more I realize that being diligent with housework forms the road that is taking me towards my vision of living in a beautiful and serene environment, and the more I am learning to embrace it. My subjective experience of it keeps changing – from drudgery to acceptance, to glad participation and even to enjoyment.
Ever since a few years ago when I accepted that housework was a legitimate expectation, part and parcel of my chosen identity as a wife and mother, the big burden of resistance and irritation I used to experience in relation to it has grown less and less. Now that I see how it embodies the things that matter most to me, there’s even more light and lightness.
That’s what happens when legitimate expectations are ‘taken up’ into our Identity and Values. They are no longer stumbling blocks on our way: they become paving stones on the road towards our Vision. 😊
Have you got some of these paving stones you can tell us about? I’m looking forward to hearing how you are working with the two lists, and what they have revealed for you.
Next week I’m going to share some very practical ideas that have been working for me to overcome my Resistance and actually do what I need to do.
Right now, I’m all inspired for my current housework tasks: taking the laundry off the drying racks, folding & putting it away, and vacuuming the carpet on the stairs and landing. Here I go! 😊💕
