Throw away the checklist

I went to the beach over the weekend with grand plans for how to maximize my time there: I’d spend 90 minutes evenly split between walking, reading, and writing?—?all while enjoying the scenery.?

Within minutes of arriving, I threw my plans out the window and decided to stare at the water for awhile before slowly heading back home. On the surface, this sounds like a rather mundane turn of events but it ended up being just what I needed.?

If we’re not careful our days can quickly begin to feel like check lists that we feel a burden to complete. And when they start to feel like this, a sense of inadequacy tends to creep in that is at its highest at the beginning of day and only begins to recede at some point late in the day once we felt like we’ve done enough.?

This morning’s plans were coming from a deep insecurity that can be summarized in the form of a nagging question: am I doing enough??

To which the antidote could never going to be to try to squeeze ever more things to do throughout the day?—?an insatiable endeavor.?

And so I decided instead to stare at the water, pull my sleeve over my watch, enjoy the view for as long as I wanted and after decide resolutely that that was enough.*

*A similar mentality can be brought to our work as well. We can endeavor to be productive in our projects without coming at it from a place of feeling inadequate.?

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I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it