Escape to Explore

Germans must have been weevils in a past life. The only places I find open when I happen to wander around a little German town on a Sunday morning are bakeries. It is in one where I am sitting as I type this.

Having had my fair dose of bread, I hope I won’t fall into a sugar comma before I can convey my thoughts into this post which, by the way, has nothing to do with Germans nor bread.

In the last few days I have been writing down in one of the many notebooks I keep at home, the things that cross my mind as things to do when I start my sixty days off. But I am just writing them down to let them settle and then choose. I am not committing to any of them. With the exception of the booked tickets and hotels to Seoul, I am letting things settle on the paper and in my head before I pick any.

Doing the 15 things I have written by now would be the opposite of recharging. I would be just transferring my busy-bee attitude from work to home, and creating myself a world of never-ending  overwhelmingness. Not picking one or two would be a waste of precious mental space that I am sure I will regain soon. That space must be worth investing in something that matters to me. The problem is that I do not know yet what that is. I might be actually setting myself for failure here. Perhaps all that matters is that I re-create the mental space I’ve lost.

In any case, I have hopes that I can figure out the “matters” bit. You see, there was this book among my pile of unread ones at home called Essentialism. I bought it together with one on meditation I recently finished, and around the same time I started listening to theminimalists.com. See the trend here? I thought it would be a great book to read during a staycation, as I thought it would give me tips and tools to discern the valuable from the useless among my stuff. While I was close, it was not quite the topic. To give you an idea, this quote is written on the front of the book (underlined by me):

‘An essential read for anyone who wants to regain control  of their health, wellbeing and happiness’

-Arianna Huffington.

In the second part of the book, the author argues that we need to explore our options before we choose where to give our time and energy. That exploration consists of five practices like thinking, sleeping, and defining a criteria for selectiveness. The purpose of these is to discern the vital few from the trivial may. One of this practices is to escape:

We need space to escape in order to discern the essential from the trivial many. Unfortunately, in our time-starved era we don’t get space by default – only by design.

(…)

Before you can evaluate what is and ins’t essential, you first need to explore your options. While non-Essentialists automatically react to the latest idea, jump to the latest opportunity, or respond to the latest e-mail, Essentialists choose to create the space to explore and ponder.

– Greg McKeown in Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit  of Less

This escape needs to be designed. It can be used to read, to answer questions, to revisit purpose and motives, or to concentrate on the execution of an important task or objective to achieve said purpose.

So I thought I’d run a little pilot with this unusual Sunday. Not that I am going to be calling myself an Essentialist with capital E from now on, but I do see the value in creating this space, as I already experience it when I take time to organize my thoughts in the form of these writings.

This Sunday seems opportune. I am in this town that, very characteristic of German towns on Sundays, is very quiet and empty. The option is to do what I would usually do: quickly fill it in with things to do. The obvious thing is visiting family who are an hour away from here. But I have already planned to do this after my meetings in a couple of days. It would be time-wise and financially smarter to stick to the plan. But I feel a need to do it or I fear I will disappoint people if I don’t, in the same way I so often feel with all kind of social events, celebratory dates, and requests from friends and family members. There is this part of me that feels obliged to please others even if that means walking over my own feelings and needs; even though nobody is asking me to do that. It is all in my head. So today, in an attempt to practice this essentialist approach, I choose to truly assess my options and choose differently. Another option is to design this day to create the space to read, to ponder over questions that are keeping me anxious about this 60-day period. And this very same choice of what to do with the day is an exercise of discerning. So I choose to revisit my options, and given my current priorities, I pick to design this day to escape.

I do so in the same way I have been blocking space in my calendar at work, and at home in the past. I have been using this time to reset daily priorities, to meditate, or to do  things I always say I want to do but never have the time for, like finishing those photo albums, or starting to learn that new skill, or repairing that broken part of the kitchen.

Whenever I have made room for myself like this, I have felt happier, I have enjoyed better quality time with people I care about, I have become a better listener, I have appreciated the people I love more, I even got rid off pain caused by a mismanaged 6-year-old leg injury when I designed space for myself. It was also through designing space how I got great jobs, and moved countries, and changed careers. It is how I have oiled rusty friendships, and how I have rebuilt the blocks of my happy marriage after turbulent times. It is also how I have overcome grief, and set yearly goals that go beyond new year’s resolutions and become real achievements.

Busyness always lies ahead, but if we plan escapes in advance, we can avoid it blinding us, and make sure we have the mental space to know clearly our options and select only the right ones for us. The book has reminded me of that, in a time when I have lost the meaning of what I do or who I am. This Sunday has been a designed escape to redefined my options. I expect to repeat this enough times so that when I go back to that list of 15 items I can know exactly what to scrap even if it means scrapping them all.

Happy Sunday,
Maria 🌺