Throwing Caution to the Wind: Over-Scheduled Style

Photo via Flickr by eliazar

There is a can of paint in my car with lines of dried dripped paint all down the sides. There are rollers and brushes that were yesterday wet with paint, wrapped in bags and tape and fear of messiness and today are probably dried and ruined also in my trunk. There is a friend’s ladder, another friend’s paint rollers and any number of things that I should have attended to yesterday, but did not. And it was wonderful.

Yesterday, I biked along the river, sat in a new, thriving church, painted a wall, installed lights, sang at the top of my lungs with no fear of judgment, went to a movie I hadn’t researched the times for 3 days before, ate gelato and pizza and hung out with some great friends and did not check my email for hours at a time. One of them said to me yesterday, “you do too much.” I was torn between immediately agreeing with him and defending my over-saturated schedule.

To give a little background here: I tend to say yes to things that I think deserve my attention and once I am committed, I am committed 300%. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think a lot of things deserve my attention. Therefore, when I look at my 7 color-coded calendars to see what is coming for the day, I am excited. I get to play kickball, or Frisbee, train for my next triathlon or volunteer at church, indirectly care for women in Rwanda by being their voices here through trying to learn how to run a non-profit advisory board as its youngest member, install a photography show, work for a cause I believe in, and try to be a good friend to quite a few different groups of people all over DC and the world.

Recently I asked another friend in semi-seriousness, “How do you know when you are doing too much?” He responded, “When it gets in the way of your life.” The things in the paragraph above are my life, very purposely and passionately so, but I think he meant that it is too much when your activities begin to define you and control you. Therefore, how do I gain that sense of freedom I had yesterday which paralleled the freedom I felt in jumping on a plane to Peru a week after buying a ticket or during my job search (more on this later as to why I was the happiest I have been in a long time while unemployed…)? Do I plan less? Care about fewer people? Leave more open space in my schedule? Draw more boundaries? Or less? Or do I just keep moving forward surrounding myself with people who nudge me when I have become too confined by my schedule to throw it all away for a day and just have an afternoon of spontaneity?

In fact, I think I will just have to move in with said people. My friends who made my blissful Sunday possible, are my soon to be roommates come September, and I look forward to ditching my schedule more often and telling you the resulting tales.