New Saws for Old… entering 2021
Hail to 2021!
New Year Resolutions; to make or not to make? Well, like velcroing a cup hook to a wall, they don’t stick for long, do they?
But a change of approach to work, uncovering the mysteries that govern success or failure, that would be good; and so I’ve made just the one. I’ve written before of Vu j’a de - a phrase I’d recommend you pin above your desk to keep it in mind. It’s the creative art of looking at our familiar world from a topsy-turvy, questioning perspective - what if this? what if that? - to see things afresh, and draw new conclusions.
The Hanged Man of the Tarot always strikes me as having a good handle on life from a different viewpoint, so that’s my role model as I upend the way I view my work/life balance.
As a Druid, I embrace cyclic time; the vast annual sweeps of seasons and tides of our lives: the spiraling progressions that can dip suddenly to connect us to the deep past, or soar with intimations of the future so real we can almost reach out and touch it – so that a ninety year old can reach back to her child-self, and a child can access a the wisdom of an ancient.
This is my understanding. But, whilst I am grateful for a brilliant life, in 2020 I’ve felt overloaded for a lot of the year. So, the linear time model whose A-to-Z, cradle-to-grave progression rules our experience leaves me hurried, stressed, aware of time passing, deadlines and a backup of lesser tasks in varying stages of completion. And, of course, there is a seductive part of being stressed – as a way of feeling pretty dam’ important; so there’s an attractive snare to watch out for.
It’s not surprising we have problems; after all - ‘Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world but as animal they inhabit time.’ C. S. Lewis
So, what pithy aide memoire might help me? ‘I have all the time I need,’ perhaps?
But there’s nothing vu j’a de about that. Say it to a time-poor person and they will become incandescent with frustration. And let’s lump in some other old stalwarts: ‘More haste, less speed,’ ‘We’ve all the time in the world’, ‘Time is on your side’, ‘What’s the hurry?’ ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ and ‘Whoa, hold your horses!’ [Please insert your own, in your own language]. Well intentioned and good reminders they may be, but when tripping over our own hurry and busyness, they seem sententious and patronizing. Nothing can be useful if we’re closed to its message. And, in hurry-world, we’re tuned in to ‘time waits for no man,’ So a relaxed relationship with task/time is just too far from our felt reality.
So, on to vu j’a de.
If Time is too kittle* a concept for us to grasp, what about Work? Maybe focusing on Work is a sufficiently oblique approach to lull the nervy horse of Time into quietude. And maybe we’ll end up with a better relationship with both.
So this is my brand new, just invented, wise old saw, for 2021:
‘There is always less to do than you think.’
We might protest: when we’ve never felt so time-poor, who would do more than they need? Yet I reckon most of us do, filling half our time with what preternaturally-wise-cartoon-character Lisa Simpson called, ‘Pointless busy work.’ It’s a sneaky beast that has dogged us from our earliest years. We learnt it - whatever form it took for us - in childhood, from whoever was our carer or role model. It goes very deep, and often there’s a moral component – it’s correct and right to only do things this way - that is laughable.
‘This is the way we’ve always done it in our family.’ The blasé assumption that there is no other acceptable way is very powerful. And twenty, thirty, forty years later, we’re still conforming, to prove that we’re in the gang. But if that stuff is irrelevant, taking up time better spent doing what helps us now, then, turning the spotlight of vu j’a de on inherited assumptions will show us which we can ditch. And we accrue these habits constantly; they come as a package with the personas we try on and express during the seasons of our lives, so discarding thoughtfully is an ongoing process.
To help keep us on our new chosen track, here is a term borrowed from ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’+.
Each of us must Sharpen the saw - which means we must preserve a sense of self and purpose by making regular time for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. Each of us has to take time to remember -
- Who I am now
- What I do/concentrate on as a result of that understanding
- What I might be in the process of becoming
- What nurtures that progression
- What might prevent that – often with my collusion
Example:
IF I am no longer a housewife; toddler-wrangler; administrator; harvesting earth mother/domestic goddess; family safety net
THEN I no longer have to
- Have a show home (never achievable!);
- Have eyes in the back of my head and be always primed for sudden emergencies;
- Be a hub person, or responsible to volunteers, paid workers and students;
- Be taken over by orgies of jam, pickle and bread making;
- Impress with effortless perfection;
- Jump in ahead of everyone else, solely responsible for damage-limitation…
And with all that gone, how can my head not feel freer, with new space to fully inhabit my present roles? Suddenly, I’m laughing at a memory - June 2020 - of brown, glutinous, sludge that I voluntarily gave hours of my life to, and that would never, ever, transform into glacé cherries. I’m not that person: I don’t do that anymore.
As with all of nature, to everything, there is a season; the art is remembering where you are, what you no longer do and what your job is today.
This line of thought makes me feel free and optimistic, and I hope the ‘new saw’ may be useful to you:
There is always less to do than you think.
I recite it every morning, and then see which task jumps to the forefront of my brain; and then I do it. Yes, it’s often on a list anyway, but wasn’t necessarily at the top. Prioritising that one thing gives me focus, and then the rest of the day seems to fall into place. So far, it’s simple, it’s fun and it seems to work.
And now, other activities are calling me away – but cheerfully; not haranguing, hectoring, or guilt-tripping-ly. Some are challenging, stimulating, fun: and if some are mundane, they are valuable stepping stones to get me where I want to be. There are not nearly as many things to do as I may have imagined yesterday. I’m feeling relaxed about the doing for, strangely, all seem achievable, and I’m hoping that the strangeness will soon become my new normal.
So, a Happy New Year to all, and if you try a little de j’a vu-ing of your own, perhaps we can compare notes. I’ll certainly report on how I get on - no, no, it’s no trouble; I’ll have plenty of time.