I often wonder, if I added up all the wasted seconds, how many hours of my life I’ve spent trying to open plastic bags (produce bags at the grocery store, bathroom trash can liners, poop bags at the dog park, you know). And none of these situations are an ideal time for licking my fingers.
Who wants fruit someone picked through with spit drenched fingers? And the thought of licking anything during trash chores or at the dog park makes me, um, you know. Blech.
How, in 2018, could we be so bad at designing these bad boys? We can take blood from a cancer patient, re-engineer their immune cells, and put them back in to kill the cancer (Crazy good book recommendation here. Thanks, Maggie). We’re successfully landing rocket boosters on barges in the middle of the ocean. Can someone solve the plastic bag debacle, possibly with a solution that doesn’t kill every living thing in the ocean and frustrate the crap out of me?
{Side note – my nephew has to invent something for school and I’ve asked him to create a dog walking backpack with a vacuum hose attachment for sucking up poop and holding it in an ick-proof container. Raise your hand if you’d like to be on that pre-order list.}
Handling detailed tasks while in a hurry is 1000 times harder still. I’ve been known to run late (Haha, yes, I know, I can hear ya’ll who know me. Laughing). It’s my thing and I fully own it. Not proud. I make a daily commitment to get better. But that’s a post for another time.
How do you do with detail oriented tasks when you’re in a hurry? Putting in earrings or hooking a bracelet? Buttoning small buttons on a shirt? Or for me (every single morning) spooning loose tea into a filter bag (all over the counter, every time). Details + hurry = fail.
What’s that they say about love? It’s in the details?
I’m learning hospitality (love) from my mom because she is black belt level. Anticipating what her guests are going to need and meeting that need before they can even ask. Remembering their preferences so they feel known and special. Serving. I hate to think it’s a dying art.
I’m on a mission to eliminate hurry from my life. It takes some advance planning (and for me, a complete change in habit). But it also takes the willingness to consciously and intentionally whittle down the number of things on my to-do list so they more reasonably reflect the number of hours I have in a day.
I want to do less, better.
It feels quite counter cultural these days. But I’m willing to swim (or tread water, slowly) upstream if it means I can pay better attention to what those I love love. What lights them up. What makes them feel known and special.
I can find HOURS to devote to that.