You can go your own way
Yesterday was a stressball day – I had mistakenly waited a day to make T’s birthday cake and then ended up taking shortcuts by not sifting the flour because I was rushing to make it (lumpy cake – we’ll taste it later today), I missed for the second day in a row doing any physical activity (no yoga, no gym) because of work, I left my desk with too much left undone because I was trying to make T’s birthday enjoyable and then at the appointed hour when we were to leave for dinner our babysitter didn’t show up and I panicked and called everyone and then Aunt Jerri assumed the role of emergency babysitter and by night’s end I was strung out and tired and fell asleep on the sofa before dragging myself to bed. I slept in fits and starts and woke this morning to a feeling that I have SO MUCH TO DO.
This morning, when I got to my desk, I read an article that said a Christian preacher was denouncing yoga as not being Christian. Duh, I thought. Then missing yoga from traveling last week and work this week, I was uber conscious of the nagging torque my body is taking because of my incessant mousing on the computer over the last twenty years, and I also felt like a stressball had grown inside my stomach and much like a hairball, it needed to come up.
I look around right now at my desk and aside from stacks of papers, it is covered with exactly 33 purple sticky notes of things that need to be done. And I turned and saw the Tao Te Ching sitting on the corner of my desk and opened it to page 24:
He who stands on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn’t go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can’t know who he really is.
He who has power over others
can’t empower himself.
He who clings to work
will create nothing that endures.
If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.
Interesting because a friend had stopped by earlier in the day who works for the motion picture industry here in New Orleans and she was anxious about her next project but said she had a note on her mirror that said, “Work is now.”
I didn’t get it at first but I get it.
October 7th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
This means tomorrow is T’s first birthday? That would mean usually late me will be early! Let me (one of) the first to say happy day, little cutie! The more that go by, birthdays that is, the faster they go.
October 7th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
No it’s T1’s birthday – or was her birthday on Wednesday (Oct 6) and T2’s birthday is March 5th – he jut turned 19 months on Oct 5th. BTW growing like a weed Alice – I mean like wow, he looks like a little boy.