A Race to the Finish, for What?

My mornings begin like a horse race, speeding towards an imaginary finish line, the prize, my to-do list. It is exhausting being me. Why can't I be one of those women on commercials, you know, the ones who linger over a cup of coffee, hair blowing in the breeze, as they look out over some sunlit mountain top, with all the time in the world. Or the Jimmy Dean spot, the one where the sun's wife (I know, how crazy is it that a human could be married to the sun) is lounging on the porch in her robe, eating her breakfast sandwich?

It's as though life hangs in the balance until my daily list is complete; done in a dizzyingly short amount of time. I'm not alone, there are quite a few of us who obsess over our routines...Maggie Mae. And naturally I have been giving this some thought, you know, to help the list obsessed people of the world.

Perhaps, we are Type A personalities, who need to have everything done in the time we deem appropriate. And let me just say for the record, I was a speed demon in my younger days. Which did not always bode so well. I worked on a grant program for a private school when we were first married and one of my bosses cautioned against my speed and tidiness. She said my desk was too orderly by late morning and it gave off the impression I wasn't working at all! But, I think the answer could really be a combo of both, we feel a great sense of accomplishment that we've made the bed, cleaned the kitchen, folded the wash, grocery shopped, returned calls, mopped, written ten thousand words, fed the cat, et cetera et cetera, before we can escape that proverbial albatross of our own making.

So, I ask, what would happen if we didn't return a call, or in my case, speak to Mother-in-law
at the same time each morning? And what if spontaneously I was asked by a friend to meet at the local Starbucks? Would I opt for litter box scooping, or coffee and a chat? Can we change our innate character traits? Maybe not. But, just maybe, sometimes we can learn to approach life with less of a gallop and more of a saunter. At the end of the day what would give us greater pleasure, knowing we spent a bit of time with the people we love, or checking off a number on our to-do list?

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