Got to thinking today, after a tweet from someone talking about lists, how some people are born list makers and some never do them. List makers will often try to convince us that the only way forward, the only way to conduct your life is by making a list. They will spend a large part of their time feverishly scribbling on bits of paper, or tapping away at keyboards, compiling these lists that prioritise their lives.
It starts when you're a small child, making Christmas lists, firmly convinced that you are going to receive every single thing on the list, which, depending on age, can grow to several pages. The poor parents are fully aware of this, but the pressure is now on them to choose things off this list that will make the child forget that they actually didn't get everything on this list his parents insisted was done! (They do notice though and the disappointment if you get it wrong can last a long time)!
I fall on the "never do them" side. I think they are evil things, things that, once written, demand your attention.
I can accept that if someone has a lot of things to accomplish, they think that a good way of putting them into order is to write them in a list. However, for me, once the things I have to do are committed to paper, the humble to-do lists become a set of demands, with the possibility of a pass or fail situation. The person who said "write down the things you have to do today and if you accomplish two things off the list you are doing well" is, quite frankly, a loser. If it's good enough to put on a list, then it deserves the respect of doing it! Which of course, if not accomplished becomes yet another thing failed. I have quite enough of those than you very much! (I could show you the list of them but won't)!
If you are going to do something, do it. If you have to think of what position it is on the list, or that you have to do something else, before you can do it you are wasting time you could have spent getting something done!
The universe flows inevitably, there are no lists that help it along it's way. It gets everything done, when it's time to do it. It doesn't fret at the end of the day that it hasn't got a black hole created or the meteor shower didn't happen quite on time, because of course, being the universe, whichever time it happens, is the right time.
So take a lesson from the universe, let things flow naturally, if you go to tidy the living room and take a dirty cup to the kitchen, then realise that the washing up needs doing and start that, then as you reach to get a new bottle of washing up liquid you realise you have none and trot off to the shops, meeting someone and having a coffee with them along the way, before going back home an hour or so later to begin the living room again... trust that this is exactly the way it's all meant to flow and enjoy it :) Life isn't on a list.. just enjoy it :)
