The Last Wave of the Day from the wonderful photography shop ElgarboartA friend recently posted a quote from William Temple on her Facebook page that read "Your religion is how you spend your solitude."
Appreciating nature
Cooking- especially as a way of connecting with the place I live
Writing
Reading
Time getting to know my wonderful husband better still. (It amazes me how parts of him can still be such a mystery to me after ten plus years together.)
Meditation
Focus
Notably absent from this list are the things I spend an inordinate amount of time actually doing:
Watching Television or Movies
Shopping, both online and off
Crafting- I have more thinking to do on this, but I think it has to do with my urge to "rescue" things.
Taking on the concerns of others.
The time spent doing these things flies by- it's almost as if no time passes at all, because they are pleasurable and yet unsubstantial. The enjoyment they offer is fleeting while the things in the first list help to cultivate a life of the spirit. Those tasks are harder to get started on with all the distractions available to escape into, but what they offer is more worthwhile. The question is how to create new patterns for my solitude so that it matches up better with my ideals.
Have you developed any ways of combating the distractions and excuses? I could use some ideas. How are your resolutions going? How are you going to make 2011 a more thoughtful year of life? One that you are engaged and excited by? (And I'm not talking about diets either).
3 comments:
"Getting sucked down the rabbit hole of the internet" perfectly describes how I spend my free time. Isn't it awful? I have all these great plans (clean the house, work on decorating the house, make art, organize, exercise, grade art work, reconnect with real people, etc.) but I always manage to spend hours on the gosh darn internet window shopping and otherwise wasting my time. Ugh.
Good luck with refocusing how you spend your free time!
I'm with you on this getting sucked down the rabbit hole of the internet thing. I also have great plans and ideas and yet here I sit (as in right now) on the computer. I'm getting off
peace n abundance,
CheyAnne
there just seems to be so much to learn
pss awesome photograph and I want to go comment on that, but there I go again.......
wonderful, thoughtful post. i find it helpful to give myself time limits to complete tasks and then it feels like you have all this "extra" time to spend doing the fun things. If i don't finish the task in the amount of time i gave myself, oh well, fun is important too
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